


The Secret Lives of Sappers and Surgeons

by AlexOblivion



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fitz Royal Engineer, FitzSimmons - Freeform, FitzSimmons during WW2, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, More Relationships to come!, Shield Team as Soldiers, Shield beginnings, Simmons Nurse, Slow Burn, Smut, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-10
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-04-30 22:44:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 57,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5182433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexOblivion/pseuds/AlexOblivion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“Come find me when you’re back, alright?” She said quietly. Fitz’s heart must have flipped over in his chest. It was carefully worded, quietly said and exactly what he needed to hear. </i><br/><i>“I will,” he said, and then he had to leave, and she was still standing there watching him go when he looked back.</i><br/>*<br/>The WW2 Shield Origin story you never knew you needed! Jemma is a doctor with the Army Nursing Service and Fitz is a Royal Engineer with the 3rd Canadian (Commonwealth) Division. They meet by chance on the warfield and keep meeting, though never under good circumstances. This will be a slow burn with lots of relationships and character drama later on, but a pretty war heavy start.</p><p>Updates every 2 days!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Normandy

**Author's Note:**

> Hullo! Thanks for reading! This is a WW2 AU with lots of juicy character drama and lots of war. Basically all of the war-related information (units, movement, actions, weapons etc) are as accurate as I could make them. Please let me know if you spot any glaring errors, and I hope you enjoy!

Spr. Alphonso Mackenzie, known to his friends and comrades as Mack, lay on the top of a dune on Juno Beach, Normandy, staring down at a half covered metal dome while bullets whizzed overhead. The steady thump thump of artillery fire hitting the beach reverberated his bones, and somewhere in the back of his head he knew he should be busy being terrified, but he was too concerned with the task in front of him for that. It was a mine, he was sure of that, but he was also sure it wasn't British, American, German, or Italian, and those were the only types he had had a chance to study. He regarded it for a couple minutes, noting the little flag that marked its position in the sand, struggling to decide what to do about it. Eventually, the logical answer occurred to him. 

“Hey Fitz!” He called. 

A couple yards down the dune Spr. Leopold Fitz’s helmeted head popped up and he looked at Mack like he was interrupting. 

“What?” He asked. Yep, that was definitely irritation in his bright blue eyes. 

“I've got an unidentifiable mine over here. Wanna take a look?” 

Fitz stood up fast. Of course he wanted to take a look. He came over to where Mack was standing and squatted next to the mine. Mack winced. When Fitz was interested in something, like a new mine, he tended to throw caution to the wind. It made Mack more than a little uneasy. Fitz scooped sand from around the mine, trying to get a better look at its and Mack resisted the urge to pull him away. Fitz was smarter than anyone else in their unit, hell probably their entire company, and he was a downright genius with machines. He had even pioneered the new minesweepers the Royal Engineers were using up and down the beach right now, but that didn't make him cautious. 

“It's Belgian,” the Scotsman muttered. 

“Can you disable it?” 

Fitz hummed. He scooped more sand from around the mine, and hummed again. 

“I’d set it on fire,” he said, “but I’d like to look inside it.” Burning mines was a pretty common way of disabling them, but it typically only worked when they knew where the explosives were located in the shells. Then you just drilled holes around them and set the thing on fire in those places. Given that not even Fitz had seen this kind of mine before, besides recognizing where it came from neither of them knew where to drill to safely burn the thing. Remote detonation would have the same problem. Fitz sighed. 

“Pass me my kit, will you?” He asked. Mack dug through the pack strapped to Fitz’s back and pulled out a small flat toolbox. He handed it down to Fitz, who opened it and set to work very carefully unscrewing the pressure plate atop the mine. 

“Best you move on,” he reminded Mack. As much as Mack didn't want to, he knew Fitz was right. There was a whole hill full of mines to get through and a very short time to do it. Mack picked his minesweeper back up and set off uphill, unable to resist a look back over his shoulder every once in a while to check on Fitz. So far, so good - the other Sapper hadn't blown himself up yet - and then Mack’s minesweeper beeped and his focus returned to the task at hand. He squatted in behind a little hillock and went to work uncovering the mine. 

By the time the unit of Royal Engineers assigned to the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division cleared the beach it was nearly two hours after H-Hour, and they were exhausted. Fitz and Mack were crouched in the lee of the Berniers sea wall with the rest of their unit, listening to the thrum of explosions all around them. The tide was coming back in, making it difficult to completely clear the beach of mines, and the next wave of soldiers would be arriving anytime. Their Platoon leader, Lieutenant Phillips, had been killed in the initial assault, along with their entire recon team. Their acting leader now was a Sergeant, Sergeant Antoine Triplett. He was Canadian, part of the 9th Infantry Brigade. He was also a damn fine man, in Fitz’s opinion. 

“Alright boys,” he was saying, pointing enthusiastically at a little map, “we need to get here to rendezvous with the rest of the 9th. How are we looking on beach clearance?” He glanced up at Fitz. Fitz was by no means in charge of the Sappers, but everyone knew he would be able to do the maths in his head and provide a reasonably accurate estimate. 

“About 40 percent,” he guessed, “tide’s coming in and we can't get at some of the obstacles on the beach.” 

“I know. Those might have to wait til this afternoon,” Trip said. A loud, echoing hum interrupted him and everyone looked up. There, above them, were the gliders coming in carrying the 6th Airborne landers. They cheered. Anti-air guns were firing non-stop at the Allied planes but for whatever reason it didn't seem like many of their boys were going down. Then someone pounded Fitz’s shoulder and motioned back out towards the beach. More landing craft were arriving, releasing floods of men onto the beach amongst the dead and the wash of broken vehicles. It was not a pretty sight, but seeing those men lifted Fitz's heart a little. He noticed, randomly, with the sort of clarity fear and shock gives, that the men were carrying folding bicycles. He couldn't help but wonder who designed them, and how they worked. 

“Alright folks, let's get a move on,” Trip said, drawing Fitz back to the present, “we need to push down the beach and link up with the rest of the 184.” That was their Engineer company. Their job was to clear the beach before day’s end so that the massive amount of equipment and people that would be needed to sustain the push inland could be brought ashore without worrying about being blown up every few feet. It also meant running around under fire on this wide, sandy beach finding and disabling mines. 

Fitz and Mack took a second to regroup and grabbed up their gear again. Terror washed over Fitz as it did anytime they had to move out of cover. There were so many dead people littering the beach, and so many tanks and vehicles and machines. Outside their little bit of cover machine guns and artillery and landmines were waiting to destroy them, and they still had a long way to go. Their objective was to reach and capture Caen, a town 22 kilometres inland. It seemed impossible that they would make it off the beach alive. 

“Eyes up, Fitz,” Mack reminded him. Fitz nodded and away they went. 

*

Another bomb shook the ground and Jemma Simmons leaned protectively over her patient, trying vainly to keep the dust and muck off of him. The soldier grinned. 

“I appreciate the close-up, doc, but I don't think I'm getting any dirtier,” he said. Jemma smiled down at him. He had introduced himself and although she was trying her best not to personalize her patients she couldn't unhear his name. Antoine Triplett, 184 Field Company, Royal Engineers. He was Canadian, but had been assigned to the British Engineer corp as part of the 3rd Infantry Division. She didn't want to know all of that, but there it was. He had been shot in the arm on his way into Caen, though the wound wasn't awful. Unfortunately getting shot near Caen meant getting shipped an hour back down the road to her until they took the town. Jemma ran a bit of water over the graze to clear the dust and kept stitching. 

“So doc, where you from?” Triplett asked. 

“London, yourself?” 

“London,” he said. He chuckled when she looked at him sideways - he was definitely not British. 

“London Ontario.” 

“Oh. Well, Sergeant Triplett, I think you'll live,” Jemma teased, patting his bandaged arm. As much as she enjoyed bantering with handsome soldiers, she had other patients to see to. 

“Can I go back to my unit?” He asked. Jemma smiled softly. She had seen that look on countless soldiers in the last few days. It was a combination of fear that they'd have to leave their buddies and longing to go home. 

“Yes, but try not to get shot again,” she said. He huffed a laugh and started to gather his things. 

“Trust me it ain't on my list,” he said, “and good timing doc, here comes trouble.” 

Jemma looked around to see what he meant and spotted two men stooping to get into her clinic. Well, one of them stooped. He was an enormously tall black man dressed in the uniform of the 3rd Infantry, and his patches denoted him as a Sapper. He, however, was not who caught Jemma’s eye. His companion was a fair bit shorter, though most people would be by comparison, and had electric blue eyes that were bright even from across the room. He too wore Sapper patches. He was looking around at the wounded who filled her little clinic - held in the basement of a local church - with something like sadness. The tall one elbowed him and pointed out Triplett. They made their way over to Jemma and their Sergeant and she wasn't surprised when it was the tall fellow who spoke first. 

“Well nurse, is he gonna make it?” He said it in a teasing tone but Jemma found herself bristling anyways. Just because she was part of the Army Nursing Service did not make her a nurse. 

“She's the doctor, Sapper, and she's damn good,” Triplett said before she could find her words. Electric blue eyes met hers, all full of surprise, which made her bristle further. She got rather tired of people assuming she was a nurse because she was a woman. 

“Doc these are two of the best minesweepers in my unit. That's Mack Mackenzie and that's Leopold Fitz.” 

Jemma barely registered their names, though a moment ago she had been ready to be defensive and prickly. She hummed a half hearted hello, her eyes trained on the stairs. Two soldiers were maneuvering a stretcher down the stone steps and on it a man was moaning. 

“Pleasure, fellows, excuse me,” she said. She dodged between rows of cots and men, tapping a couple nurses on her way. The stretcher bearers were looking around frantically and she pointed at her surgery table at the other end of the basement. 

“Over there,” she called. Two of her nurses were on an intercept route as well. 

“What happened?” She asked as she reached them. She didn't need to have asked; the spray of bloody gashes in the side of the man’s face and the stump of his arm said it all. 

“Grenade,” the medic holding the stretcher said anyways. 

Jemma slid on gloves and started moving. She had been on the front for three days now, and already the wounds were becoming rote. One of her nurses was already taking vitals. Jemma noticed suddenly that the moaning had stopped. 

“No pulse, doctor,” Elaine Dunham, one of the nurses, called from the man’s head. 

“Start CPR. You, check his tags and get a blood bag set up,” Jemma ordered. The medic looked at her like he was going to argue but Jemma bulldozed right over him. 

“Get the blood or he dies,” she said. The medic went. The other nurse assisting them, Vanessa Hargrave, had a tray of tools and was beginning to unwrap the man’s arm. As soon as she had the bandage off Jemma knew it was too late. His arm looked like hamburger meat. She heard a retching noise behind her and chanced a glance over her shoulder. The three Sappers she had been talking to earlier were watching the whole scene unfold, looking positively appalled. 

“Best keep moving,” she told them as she took over CPR from Dunham, “it's about to get worse.” She barely heard them shuffle out. 

Hours later when her counterpart Dr. Simon North came back on and she was lying on an empty cot in a corner, she would remember Fitz’s blue eyes, Mack’s easy smile, and Triplett’s happy-go-lucky attitude and she would hope to whoever was listening that they wouldn't end up in her clinic, though the way this war was going, they very well might.


	2. Caen in June

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fitz finds himself hauling equipment at the whim of a very determined doctor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I couldn't help it. I am so loving writing this story that I'm way ahead in chapters (5 is already written, 6 is partway) that I needed you guys to catch up! Let me know what you think! 
> 
> -AO

“How long have we been in this bloody town?” Fitz asked Mack. They were leaning against the broken wall of a home in Marcelet, a hamlet a couple kilometres outside of Caen, smoking a cigarette and waiting for new orders. It was a clear day in the French countryside and the sun was high overhead. There were no bombs today, which was a minor miracle, and the little town they were inhabiting was actually peaceful at the moment. It was driving Fitz mad. 

“Almost a month,” Mack said. Fitz whistled. 

“That's ridiculous. Why are the bloody Germans wasting so much bloody time and money on this stupid bloody town?” He punctuated each bloody with a kick at the wall. 

“Easy there big fella,” Mack laughed. “It's strategically important. You know that. Besides, it beats building bridges doesn't it?” They had spent the last couple weeks in various locations in the countryside outside of Caen, building pontoon bridges over the creeks so that the armoured units could move around the city. Though since they hadn't actually taken the city scooting around outside it wasn't doing much good in Fitz’s opinion. 

“I’d rather build a bridge than stand around here,” Fitz muttered. 

“Careful what you wish for,” Mack said, nodding toward the dirt road leading into the tiny town. Army trucks were rolling in, jammed full of troops and crates. They were accompanied by vehicles pulling artillery and a couple Shermans plus marching infantry. Mack pulled Fitz up from the wall so they could go investigate. It turned out to be the armoured brigade of the 3rd British Division, more casually known as Monty’s Ironsides, and the rumours amongst the men were that they were massing for an offensive on Caen. It seemed likely as truck after truck rolled in and took up position in the little town. Fitz couldn't help but be a little excited. After a few weeks of bridge building excitement, he was finally going to get back into action, and it felt good. 

“Put those crates down. Colonel, where do you expect my nurses to set up?” That voice was shockingly familiar to Fitz, even though he had only heard it utter a few distracted words. He could still picture her a month later, ordering medics around, hands covered in blood. Mostly he pictures her defiance when Mack had accidentally called her a nurse. He turned around to watch Doctor Jemma Simmons, hands on hips, fatigues muddy up to her knees, bristly as a cornered cat, confront a tired looking older fellow with Colonel’s bars on his shoulder. 

“You can take the barn there, Doc. Is that going to work?” The colonel asked. He pointed at a rather dilapidated barn attached to a little farmhouse. It was missing most of its windows and he could see from here that it was still mostly full of hay, and he fully expected the doctor to refuse such terrible accommodations. Instead Simmons nodded and smiled. Her smile lit up her entire face and Fitz found he couldn't look away from it. 

“That'll do just fine, thank you,” she said. She picked up the crate at her feet and her helper, a burly man who watched her like a puppy, followed her to the barn. That wouldn't do. Before Fitz knew what his feet were doing they had carried him over to her new clinic and left him standing directly in her way when she turned around to head back to her truck. 

“Oh, excuse me,” she said politely. She met his eyes and a flash of recognition flew across her face. 

“Oh hello,” she said, “Fitz wasn't it? From Cambes?” She named the town they had been building bridges in when Trip took a bullet to the arm. 

“Uh yeah, nice to see you again doc,” he said, scrubbing his hand across the back of his neck. He was just now realizing how dirty he was, and if he thought about it he couldn't remember the last time he had showered. She didn't look too well-kept herself at the moment, but she was still beautiful and he suspected he wasn't.

“You too! I'm glad you're alright,” she smiled up at him. It occurred to him that if she was glad he was okay it meant she had been thinking about him. Or maybe she said that to all the soldiers she encountered?

“Yeah, barely.” He sent her a lopsided smile so she knew he was teasing her - she seemed like she would fuss if she thought there could be something wrong - and scrubbed his neck again. “Do you, um, need help setting up?” He asked. 

“That would be lovely, thank you. Our truck’s over here.” She led him to it and set him up moving boxes and bags of equipment to the barn, where she stood, arms akimbo, directing. The few nurses who traveled with her were sorting and setting up, and the other fellow with the Red Cross on his arm helped ferry things. He introduced himself as Doctor Simon North when Fitz asked. Fitz made trip after trip to the truck until all their gear was in the barn, and then helped them set up the barn so everyone was happy that it was a useable space. Afterwards, he found himself sitting on a cot beside Dr. Simmons, passing her a cigarette. She took it gratefully and let him light it. 

They sat in silence for a minute, watching through the barn doors as yet more vehicles drove into the town. Fitz couldn't for the life of him think of what to say to her. Fortunately, Simmons decided to break the ice for him. 

“So how's Sergeant Triplett’s arm?” She asked. 

“Fine, yeah, he's fine. Was back out on the bridge that afternoon, actually,” Fitz said. Simmons’ brow furrowed. 

“I thought I told him to stay off if for a while,” she said. 

“Not much chance of that around here,” Fitz stated. Simmons sighed and Fitz realized how difficult it must be to be a doctor in the midst of all this. She was fighting a losing battle, and by the look on her face she knew it. 

“What happened to that soldier? The one with the, um, arm?” He realized halfway through that the answer was probably depressing. 

“He died,” she said simply. He glanced over at her as she took another pull on her cigarette. She was grubby, as were they all by this point, her fair skin and tightly braided hair streaked with dust. Her hands, though, were immaculate. 

“I'm, uh… Shit. Sorry,” he mumbled. He felt like a bit of an ass for bringing it up. 

“It's alright. These things happen. I've learned I need to let them go,” she said. Her eyebrows were sad though and he thought maybe she wasn't quite as good at letting things go as she said. She took a deep breath and changed the subject. 

“So you're a Sapper?” She asked, “how's that?” 

He shrugged. “It's alright. We're always a little behind the front lines, so it's a bit less action than the infantry fellows, but we do our jobs. Lately it's just been building bridges.” 

“Really? How do you possibly have time to build bridges?” She asked. He met her eyes, wondering if she was kidding, but she actually looked interested. 

“They're mostly pre-made,” he explained, “you drive the piles in and then just bolt the box girders down. Easy.” It wasn't exactly that easy, but she looked impressed and that made him happy. 

“That's fascinating. Did they speculate the size of the rivers and build the bridge girders to fit?” She asked. Fitz grinned at her, excited and surprised that she would guess that. 

“Yeah! But they didn’t really expect it to take so long to take Caen, so now we're just sort of jerry-rigging them together,” he said. 

“Extend the girders over the edge of the banks?” She asked. Her eyes were bright and for the first time that day she looked lively. It was out of place in a place like this, but it lit up Fitz’s afternoon. He could feel himself responding to her, sitting up straighter and smiling. 

“Exactly! They're moving more across the channel but I'm sure you know army supply lines are-”

“Ridiculously slow? I know! Try getting medical supplies,” she said. 

“I wouldn't even know where to begin,” he said. She grinned that brilliant smile at him again and Fitz couldn't help but smile back. She stared at him, luminous brown eyes happy for a moment. Then her eyes skittered sideways like she has caught a glimpse of something and her face fell. Fitz looked around. He spotted the source of Simmons’ upset immediately. A jeep was coming in hot with a stretcher tied across its hood and another on the back. Three people sat in the seats and both stretchers were full. They saw the barn with the medical flag draped haphazardly over the wide door and drove over to park in front of them. Simmons was already on the move by the time they got there. 

“Simon!” Simmons shouted, going straight for one of the men in the stretchers. The nurses were on their way out and they took charge of the men who were able to walk, getting them inside and sitting them down. Simon North, the other doctor with her, came out a moment later and started checking over the other stretcher patient. Meanwhile, Fitz stood awkwardly near the door, wanting to help or leave or somehow not be useless. His silent plea was answered when North looked around, saw Fitz, and beckoned at him. “Grab that end, Sapper, let's get this man inside,” he said. Fitz obeyed and they carried the soldier into the barn and laid him out in one of the cots they had set up that morning, then they went back out to the jeep to grab the soldier from the front. 

“Gunshot wound to the upper abdomen, looks like internal bleeding,” Simmons reported to North as they went inside. North nodded and indicated his patient. 

“Shrapnel to the neck and chest and burns on his face and arms.” 

One of the nurses heard them talking and called out that the two sitting patients both had multiple lacerations from razor wire but were otherwise alright. Simmons and North looked at each other. 

“Gunshot first,” she said. 

He nodded. “I'll prep.” He moved further into the barn where they had set up their makeshift surgery. Simmons nodded. She turned to go to her next patient and stopped, spun around. She put her hand on Fitz’s arm briefly and smiled at him. 

“Thanks for helping us,” she said softly, “Stay safe, alright?” Fitz’s lips tilted up at the corners in a tight, small smile. 

“You too,” he said. She patted him again and off she went, into the barn. Fitz watched her for a couple moments as she started cutting fabric off the chest of the wounded soldier, easily directing her nurses. As strange as it was, Simmons seemed to come alive here, in the middle of the chaos that surrounded them. Fitz recalled the flash of excitement he had felt when she finished his sentences and understood engineering. He couldn’t help the grin that stretched his face.


	3. Caen in July

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Battle rages as three divisions of Allied forces attack Caen. Meanwhile Jemma is tending the wounded, trying not to think about why she's so worried about her new friend Fitz.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this battle is insanely complicated, which is why I haven't gone into much detail in this chapter. I figured you guys would rather see more characters instead of lengthy descriptions of battlefield logistics :P 
> 
> Anyways, I should be good to keep posting every couple of days as long as I keep writing at this speed, so let me know what you think! 
> 
> -AO

From the sounds outside it was very hard to tell if the offensive into Caen was going well or not. The ground shook with artillery fire and the rattling sounds of guns layered the air like a particularly ugly orchestra. Simmons was in the middle of her barn, wrapping bandages around arms and legs and heads as quickly as she could. Her goal here was to stabilize and evacuate as many of the wounded as possible, and she already had a steady stream of jeeps moving off to the Evac point in Berniers. Those she couldn't save went into a different truck, and that one had already been emptied twice. 

Simmons wiped her hand across her forehead, struggling to remember what she was supposed to be doing. This fellow had a laceration to his neck? No, gunshot wound in the thigh. Right. She squatted down and grabbed for her forceps. 

“This is going to hurt. Good news though, you'll be going home,” she said. The soldier whimpered and she couldn't tell if it was out of pain or fear of leaving. That was a particular pathology that Simmons saw over and over - they just wouldn't leave their units, even when they were injured and more of a liability than anything else. She fished the bullet out of the man's leg.

“Do we have any more sutures?” She called. 

“No,” Simon’s voice was as tired as hers. “We’re out of plasma and damn near out of triangular bandages too.” 

So she dumped antiseptic onto it, packed the wound with gauze, wrapped it up, and moved on. The next man was missing two limbs and wasn't moving. She checked for a pulse, knowing full well it wouldn't do any good. 

“Get him out of here,” she said to no one in particular. Jemma swiped a hand across her cheek and realized it had been covered in blood. Something in her snapped. She tore her mask off her face and rushed for the door, needing a moment away from the madness of her barn. She stepped outside and watched two men, support unit, sling a body into the back of their truck full of bodies. She slid down the side of the barn and sat, not caring that the ground was six inches of mud. 

Caen was on fire. She could see it a couple kilometres away, lit up like a grisly nativity scene. Puffs of black smoke and columns of flame erupted every time another shell hit, and particularly bright explosions would silhouette scurrying shapes along the ground. She wondered, almost absently, if Fitz was still in there. Certainly if he was he couldn't survive that. No one could. A hysterical giggle clawed its way up her throat. They were all going to die here, and there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it. 

A warm, living, round face appeared in front of her, blocking the smoke and fire of the city. Simon North’s friendly brown eyes and pockmarked skin filled her entire vision. He put his hands on either side of her face and shook her, forcing her to look at him. His normally easy countenance was worried, and she didn't understand why. 

“Jemma, Jemma, you can't do this to me right now,” his voice sounded tinny and far away. “Come on Jemma, I need you right now. Come on Jemma.” 

Slowly she focused on him. She blinked rapidly and then the world crashed back in on her. Shock, she thought, she must be in shock. Simon took the edge of his sleeve and wiped the blood off her cheek. She took a deep breath. 

“You okay?” He asked. She nodded, and took his hand to help her up. 

“I'm good. Let's go.” 

* 

It was morning, and all of the medical staff were sitting in the mud, all streaked with blood and sweat and dirt. Hargrave was leaned on Simon, sleeping fitfully. Simon was smoking and sharing his cigarette with Dunham, who looked as distant and lost as Jemma felt. She herself was sitting a few feet from the nurses, holding an unlit cigarette in her fingers. She hated the habit but couldn't quite seem to kick it. At least, not here. 

The fighting in the city had slowed and she had been told, she thought, that they had pushed the Germans across the river, which meant they now controlled half the city. Their casualty rate had slowed as well, giving them a free moment. Simmons felt empty, drained like she had poured all of herself into the people she had treated in the last… She didn't actually know how long it had been. Had they slept before yesterday? They certainly hadn't slept last night. 

“I have a chocolate bar,” Elaine Dunham announced suddenly, like it had just occurred to her. She pulled the candy out of her fatigues and held it up. Milk chocolate, flat and dark and delicious. Jemma tried to perk up but couldn't find it in herself. 

“Eat this,” Dunham ordered, pressing squares of chocolate into Simon’s hand. She leaned out and handed a row of chocolate to Jemma. 

“It'll help. Eat it.” 

So she did, slowly and mechanically, and as she chewed the first square of chocolate she did feel better, if only a little. She finished her section and Dunham passed her another. Jemma nearly devoured that one, her body finally remembering that it liked to eat and it hadn't done so in a while. 

“Better, right?” Dunham asked. They nodded. Elaine carefully wrapped the last sections up, nodding at Vanessa Hargrave asleep on Simon’s shoulder. “For her. We should do the same, you know. I'll take first rounds.” 

Simon nodded, pragmatic as ever. He stood, then stooped and picked Hargrave up with an arm under her shoulders and knees. He carried her into the barn, presumably to lay her down and follow suit. Jemma stayed exactly as she was. She had spotted a small group of soldiers walking down the dirt track that ran from Marcelet to Caen, and amongst them was a giant of a man, tall and black and easy to spot in the dim grey morning. Where that man went, another was sure to follow. Simmons’ heart picked up speed, her eyes scanning the crowd as the unit neared her. She couldn't see him… Her heart was sinking when she caught a flash of bright blue eyes. 

She barely recognized him, so covered in mud and blood and grime as he was. He recognized her though. He detached from his unit and made his way over to her as she struggled to her feet, suddenly and ridiculously aware of how terribly dirty she was. His eyes were bagged and glassy, and she couldn't imagine what he had seen to make them that way. She wanted, all of a sudden and more than anything, to take him in her arms and bury herself there. Instead, her hands fluttered uselessly around his shoulders and settled for brushing dirt off his lapels. Not that it would help. 

Fitz let her, his eyes busy searching over her like he was looking for something. When his eyes met hers again there was a bit more life in them, like he had registered that she was here, she was okay, and it made him happy. 

“You okay?” He murmured. She shivered. His voice was soft and growly and inexplicably caring. 

She nodded at him. “Yeah. You?” 

“Yeah,” he sighed, looking dead on his feet. He nodded in the direction his unit had gone. “Gotta go sleep.” 

“Okay.” 

He hesitated, swaying on his feet. She watched him silently. His hand jumped from his side up to her cheek, and brushed a finger over her skin. 

“You're okay.” He said it like he was convincing himself, so she just smiled and leaned her face into his skin. That seemed to do it. Fitz quirked a tiny, worn down grin at her and then walked away to where Mack was standing in the road, grinning like hadn't been in a days long firefight. 

Jemma watched him go until a massive yawn split her lips, exhaustion finally washing over her. It was like her body had flipped a switch and now she was free to be tired. She stumbled her way into the barn and found a free cot. Sleep claimed her immediately, and for once in this blasted war Jemma didn't dream.


	4. Caen in August

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fitz and Simmons find their inner Fitsimmons :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's Chatper 4! So I'm good to post every 2 days for the next couple weeks at least, so yay! The story will be moving along fairly quickly now to get to the juicy stuff :) Let me know what you think! 
> 
> -AO

“Sapper Fitz? Have you seen - yes I'm looking for Sapper Leopold Fitz. Oh, yes I see him. Thank you!” Her voice was remarkably piercing. How was that possible? He was used to gunfire and artillery for pete’s sake, how could her voice be more piercing than all that? 

“Oh dear,” she murmured, and he couldn't believe that was her trying to be quiet because how could it be? “He's asleep. I'll just come back later Sergeant, thank you though.” 

“Nah, he'll be happy to see you,” that was Trip’s voice, and no he was not bloody happy to see her! Was that a note of amusement in his voice as well? Fitz was going to kill him. 

“No, really he should sleep. Soldiers in high stress environments are notoriously bad sleepers and add to that the possibility of shell shock and it's a wonder he's sleeping at all really, I couldn't possibly disturb him-” 

Fitz couldn't take anymore. “Y’already are,” he exclaimed, sitting upright. His helmet fell off his head and Trip snickered. Simmons looked properly apologetic, her hazel eyes downcast and her combat boot - which didn't suit her at all - scuffing the ground. Trip just looked intrigued. 

“I'm sorry, I'll go,” Simmons said. She turned to leave and Fitz was sighing some sort of protest when her shoulders squared and she wheeled on him. 

“Actually, I won't go. My refrigeration unit is broken and all of my blood stores are going to sour if I can't fix it. Your Sergeant tells me you're the best engineer in this place, so I need your help. Okay?” She ground the last part out from between her teeth and Fitz had to cover a smirk. She was pretty when she was angry, but that was certainly not what she wanted to hear. And he had the feeling she would just get angrier until he told her what she did want to hear. 

“Alright,” he sighed grumpily, “I’m getting up.” Her eyes lightened briefly and FItz found himself wondering what else he could do to make her eyes smile at him like that. Fitz stood and followed her across Marcelet to the little barn she had commandeered as her clinic, then through there to the back. Their refrigeration unit was a little cooler stacked atop boxes of supplies. Fitz popped it open and stuck his hand in; sure enough it wasn’t as cold as it ought to be. He checked behind it, but all the cords running to its generator were attached fine, so he followed them out. 

The problem became obvious the moment he saw the generator. It had cords running off it every which way, like people had been coming along and jacking into it with no thought. 

“How many bloody things are you running off this wee baby generator?” Fitz asked, slanting a lopsided grin at her so she knew he was teasing her. 

Simmons shuffled and ducked her head. “Just the lights, and the stove, and the fridge, and the radio and-”

 

“Stop, stop, that’s enough. That’ll do it,” Fitz said. He bent down and put his hand near the whirring motor. It was decidedly hot. 

“It shouldn’t! I’ve put transformers on all of my connections to keep from having this problem!” Simmons insisted. Fitz raised his eyebrows at her, impressed that she knew electronics. It was a booming field but it wasn’t exactly something medical doctors typically got into. 

“Don’t look at me like that, just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean electronics are beyond me you know,” she growled. Apparently she had taken the eyebrows the wrong way. 

“No, it’s not that. I was impressed was all.” She was still skeptical. 

“Seriously. Where does an MD learn about electronics, anyways? And you need to relax, Simmons. You’re wound tighter’n a damn clock.” He wasn’t sure what compelled him to say that to her, to act like they were familiar when they weren’t. Maybe it was the memory of her hands fluttering around his shoulders like they wanted to land on him, or maybe it was the way she had looked at him last night when she realized it was him and he was okay. Like she had been waiting for him. Whatever it was, they weren’t exactly strangers any longer. 

Simmons reared back a little, shocked, then barked a laugh. “Oh damn. You’re right, and I hate it when others are right.” He smirked at that. “I’m just… if we can’t get this fridge working again all my blood will go sour and I’ll have to start collecting from soldiers. I hate asking them to do that. Oh and I like electronics, that’s all. Always had a knack for picking up new skills...” 

“Simmons.” She stopped her rambling and looked at him. “We’ll get it working. Don’t worry.” 

It actually turned out to be a fairly simple problem to fix. Simmons’ power cables all had transformers on them, which allowed the electricity to be regulated to the specific voltage she needed, but none of the other out lines did that. Someone had plugged in one too many lines and the whole system had suffered as a result. They chased down power cables until they found a non-essential system they could take offline, and then went back, and sure enough the cooler was running at full steam again. Simmons’ smile when the blasted thing was working again made all the effort worth it, Fitz thought. 

He was standing staring at the fridge when the idea occurred to him. “You know,” he said, “This thing could be a hell of a lot more efficient.” 

Simmons came to stand beside him, her attention focused on the patient card in her hand. She didn’t have time for full reports, she said, so she kept small notes about each person who visited her so that she could easily look up their medical history and file her reports later.

“What’re you staring at?” She asked him. “The fridge is working, thanks to you. I swear, you’re some kind of miracle worker” 

“Was that a thank you?” Fitz guessed. 

Simmons wrinkled her nose at him but continued on past him to dig into the pile of supplies. “Yes, I suppose so. Thank you, Fitz, for helping me,” she said, plastering on her most insincere face. He couldn’t help but snort at her. 

“You're welcome. And I was looking at your fridge, it's a horribly inefficient design.” 

“I know, but there's nothing for it,” she started. Fitz cut her off.

“Sure there is. Look, it's a CFC refrigeration unit, right? Well, I know these types. The tubing in the back is ridiculously complicated and it doesn’t need to be. Most of it’s power gets transferred into heat in the coils, and you lose nearly all of your joules that way. If you re-route the tubing-”

“-and insulate the coils, but that would take -” 

“-a couple hours.” They stared at each other. A grin spread over Simmons’ face and Fitz smirked back at her. After a moment too long he refocused. 

“Uh - right, okay, do you have anywhere else you can keep the blood?” He asked. 

“No, but if we do it in stages, can we keep it cold long enough?” She murmured, eyes distant as she thought. He wasn’t sure if it was a rhetorical question but he knew the answer so he told her anyways. 

“Yeah, definitely. Look, I don’t know when I’m going to get called back out, so if we’re going to do this we should do it now,” he said. Her eyes snapped over to his, and she laid a hand on his arm. 

“Fitz, I’m so grateful, really. Thank you,” she said. He could feel the tips of his ears going red and there went his hand to rub over his neck again. 

“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it. Shall we?” 

She grinned. “Let’s.” 

They had just barely managed to fix the fridge before he got called back out by a breathless Mack running into the barn looking for him. Simmons watched him stand and accept his gear from Mack with an unreadable expression, and just before he left she walked over to him. She adjusted the straps of his backpack and she wouldn’t meet his eyes. Fitz struggled to think of something to say, but she beat him to it. 

“Come find me when you’re back, alright?” She said quietly. Fitz’s heart must have flipped over in his chest. It was carefully worded and quietly said and exactly what he needed to hear. 

“I will,” he said, and then he had to leave, and she was still standing there watching him go when he looked back.


	5. Leaving Caen

In the end, it took the Allies nearly two months longer than anticipated to take Caen. Later Fitz would hear an estimate of the dead just from their side, and he would believe it. Fifty thousand Allied troops died at Caen, a number which seemed so high as to be ludicrous. But Fitz was there, he saw it. He knew that that number was probably conservative. In that time, Fitz’s unit, the 184 Field Company of the Royal Engineers, built fifteen bridges (three of them at least twice), laid dozens of kilometres of telecommunications cable, dismantled more landmines than he could shake a stick at, and acted as regular infantry whenever necessary. Through it all, any time he had a moment off he was at the field clinic, so much so that it became a joke in his unit. Needed to find Fitz? Check the clinic. Hadn't heard from him in a while? Check the clinic. His superiors should have minded, but they realized very quickly that there was immense benefit to be had from Leo Fitz spending time with Jemma Simmons. 

Together, they were brilliant. Fitz helped Simmons come up with a modification to their refrigeration that allowed them to keep bagged blood fresh exponentially longer, and it was in development by the beginning of August. Simmons helped Fitz redesign the metal detectors carried by minesweepers to be more efficient and more sensitive to ceramics, which were becoming more common in landmines. Several generals from all sides of the Allies had asked for them to be moved to research and development positions, unbeknownst to then, but their superiors recognized how very effective they were in the field and had so far staved off any movement. 

But on the ground, at least for Fitz, Simmons was his only bright spot in an increasingly dismal war. They talked about everything, about who was waiting for them at home and what they would do after the war and the terrible things they had seen. She was ridiculously smart and hopelessly optimistic and he knew that very soon she too might be gone. They had successfully taken Caen, and that meant they would be moving out soon. There was talk of Simmons staying behind to link up with a mobile hospital organization which would have about eighty more personnel than she currently had and a few hundred more beds, but 3rd Infantry was not a defensive division. They would be moving on, with or without her. 

The morning they received their orders Fitz was, predictably, with Simmons. They were working on their latest gadget, a small wireless radio that would be much easier for soldiers to carry than the boxy ones they currently used. He was seated on a cot with his notebook laid out in front of him so she could see his design and make suggestions. This was a bit more engineering than biological, so less her strong suit, but she had a level of creativity and ingenuity that he had never encountered before. She made logic leaps that he couldn't, and reached startlingly logical conclusions seemingly out of nowhere. He, on the other hand, was detail oriented and could bring her down to earth, reign in her imagination into practical applications. 

Simmons paced in front of him, her brow furrowed deep in thought. He loved watching her work, watching the way she thought. He knew her well enough now that he could identify exactly when she had come upon an idea, so when she turned to him, face alight and eyes shining he knew to get his pen ready. 

“What if we add a toroid coil?” She asked, and his mind raced to catch up. 

“That would allow us to use a much smaller battery and ensure it'll use up all the stored power! That'll work, Jem, that'll work,” he murmured. She stuttered when he called her Jem, and her cheeks went red. That had been happening more and more often lately, he noticed, but he didn't know if it was enough to make a move on her. He did know his heart raced when she hugged him after they'd made a discovery, and he knew that whenever he came back from the field she was the first person he wanted to see. She waited for him when he was away, and she was always relieved to see him. Every time he left she told him “Come find me when you’re back,” and so far he always had. She had also become more willing to touch him the more time went on, like she knew he would be moving out soon and she couldn't get enough of him before he left. 

He was pondering all this when Jemma stopped in front of him and stood, wringing her hands. He looked up at her and was met with an expression he hadn't seen on her before - nerves. He had seen her afraid, angry, happy, and worried, but never nervous. She was chewing her bottom lip and worrying her hands together, sleeves of her fatigues rolled up past her elbows. 

“Fitz…” She stopped, looking more unsure of herself than he had ever seen her. Fitz wanted to reach for her, feel her soft skin beneath his thumbs while he comforted her, but he could feel that this was something more momentous than could be solved by a bit of handholding. She caught his eyes and there was something there in them that he couldn't name. 

“What is it?” He asked, not daring to be hopeful. She chewed her lip a little more and moved into his personal space so that her legs were nearly touching his knees. 

“Fitz, I… Well, I-”

Trip came panting into the hospital, his face pale and resolute. Fitz saw him and his stomach sank, not just because of his terrible timing. Jemma spun out of Fitz’s space and turned away from him. 

“New orders, Fitz,” Trip huffed. “We’re moving on Falaise.” Fitz paled and Jemma sucked in a breath beside him. The Falaise Pocket was a small strip of land between the town of Falaise and the town of Argentan that was held by the remnants of three German forces. For whatever reason in two months of fighting the Germans had held out there, despite being nearly surrounded. It was well known by now that the Germans never surrendered, and it was likely that Falaise would be another Caen. Another bloodbath. 

“Alright,” Fitz said. His throat was dry and he could barely get the words out. In two months he had gone on every excursion, done everything they’d asked of him but this one scared him. At the end of the Battle of Caen he had seen what happened when the German armies got desperate. They were never allowed to retreat and that kind of inevitability did things to people. Made them reckless, unpredictable and dangerous. 

“When do we go?” He asked. 

Trip looked scared, he saw. His eyes were wide and his gaze flicked from Fitz to Simmons. “We move out as soon as we’re able.” 

“Alright,” Fitz said again, “I’ll be there in a minute.” Again Trip’s eyes flicked from Fitz to Simmons and he nodded. 

“Better hurry,” he said. He left the barn and Fitz was left with Simmons, standing with her back to him, and nothing to say. 

“Jemma…” He trailed off, awkwardly shifting his feet and trying to think of something to say. Simmons turned around slowly, her eyes still downcast. 

“We got new orders this morning. We're staying here. We're going to set up a field hospital, and they're sending more staff too,” she said. All he heard was that he would have to leave without her. Her eyes finally flicked up and caught on his. There were tears welling in them. 

“Will you… Will you come find me when you're back?” She asked. 

Something in his chest snapped. He took two steps forward into her personal space and slid his hands around her shoulders. She watched him, face tilted back. 

“Jem… Always,” he said. It was as close to a declaration as either was going to get. The tears overflowed Jemma’ eyes and she put her head on Fitz's shoulder. He tightened his grip on her. There was an edge of desperation in her cries and in his hold on her that spoke to the sheer unfairness of the situation. How could it be fair that it took a war zone for him to meet someone like her? And how could he lose her now? 

But lose her he was going to because they were due to assault Falaise and he had to leave. He slowly pulled back, away from her. She chewed her lip, looked away from him again, like she had something to say but couldn't find the words for. 

“Stay safe,” she said finally, and it wasn't what either of them wanted her to say. 

“You too. Don't finish that radio without me,” he teased very gently, and then with a Herculean effort he turned and left the clinic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry :( But let me know what you think!


	6. Fitz in Falais in August

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fitz's first solo chapter! Let me know what you think!

Fitz’s feet were drumming against the floor of the APC he was in and he couldn’t stop them. When he had gotten in the carrier it had been dark out but the sky was greying like the sun was going to come up and they still weren’t moving, which could mean only one thing: the plan hadn’t been executed as planned. They were supposed to be following the 4th Canadian Armored Brigade and the 2nd Canadian Armored Brigade down the Falaise Corridor so they could punch through and advance further south, but so far nothing had happened. The RAF bombers had been pounding the route south all night, since there was heavy resistance along there and the Germans were well dug in, and early in the night the four brigades set to clear the path had left. They should have been moving though, and they weren’t - 

“Here we go, lads, brace y’selves,” their new unit lieutenant called. They had been assigned one during the Caen assault to replace Lieutenant Phillips, and so far Lieutenant Lance Hunter was a pretty good man, if a little brash and reckless. Mack disliked his style, but Trip laughed it off and Fitz appreciated someone with as little patience as he had. Hunter was in the carrier ahead of Fitz’s and he was positively bouncing. Ahead of them, the rest of their brigade was on the move, and their ACP set off in the column. 

Fitz couldn’t help but stick his head up to see what was going on as they went, though he wasn’t supposed to. On either side of the road were signs of heavy fighting, but it was quiet as they passed. Burnt out tanks and antitank guns littered the terrain along the road, and dead mean were scattered about like leaves. Fitz shook his head. So much destruction, and for what? The Germans were surrounded at Falaise, they couldn’t possibly think they were going to make it out. Why not surrender and save all this death? But everyone knew the Germans didn’t retreat, so in they went. 

By dawn Fitz’s unit was in position a few kilometers from their southernmost target at Cintheaux. Once there they were ordered to halt to let the armored divisions and artillery move into position, so their crews dismounted and settled in for the day. Fitz found himself sitting around a little fire with Mack and Trip, trying to eat something, though their rations weren’t exactly appetizing. 

“So… Fitz,” Trip started, and Fitz rolled his eyes. He knew exactly where this was going. 

“I haven’t heard from her, if that’s what you’re asking,” he said, hoping to cut the guys off before they got going. 

“Well, no, that’s not what I was going to ask, but let’s talk about that instead,” Trip said. Fitz groaned. 

“Let’s not and say we did.” 

“Not gonna happen, Turbo. Trip said there was some sort of moment between you two before we left. Anything good happen?” Mack asked. 

“None of your business, anyways,” Fitz retorted. The guys cackled, clearly not buying it. 

“Look, why don’t we get some sleep,” he suggested. 

“Not gonna happen.” Lieutenant Hunter came flying by, strapping his helmet onto his head and shouldering his gear. “12th SS Panzer Division, bearing down on us. Mount up, people.” 

Mack kicked out the fire and Fitz threw Trip his pack, already getting into his. Trip was the first one up into the APC and he caught the others’ rifles as they threw them up then scrambled up after them. Their entire line was moving just as quickly and by the time their driver was in position the line was moving. It was only minutes later that they watched a shell hit the first APC in the column and blow it into pieces. 

“Oh hell, that was a Tiger shell,” Fitz called. Mack did a double take. 

“Are you sure?” He asked. 

“Yes I’m bloody sure! Look!” The tip of the tank’s cannon emerged from the bush on the side of the road. 

“Scatter!” Their radio shouted, “Anti-tank guns forward!” Their APC took a sharp left, back towards the road they had been travelling beside. Large-caliber bullets ricocheted off the side of their carrier. Fitz ducked his head down further and looked around. They were engineers, they didn’t have RPGs or guns large enough to do any damage to tanks. 

“What the hell do we do?” Mack yelled. 

“Nothing! We fight back, get out of here, and reconnect with the rest of the brigade!” Trip said. 

Fitz was ready to yell back and argue that they didn’t have any weapons strong enough, that they didn’t know what they were facing, that this was a stupid idea, but as he opened his mouth to explain all of that the forward vehicle in their column blew up and the Tiger tank emerged from the bushes completely. Fitz set his mouth in a grim line and kept his head down. There was no way they were running from this now. 

*

He hadn’t slept in three days. He was sweating profusely in the hot August sun and his hair felt like it was glued to his head by sweat. All in all, Leo Fitz had had more comfortable days. Speaking of, “What day is it?” He asked. Mack was sitting beside him and he shifted his helmet so he could run a hand over his bald head. 

“I don’t even know, Turbo,” he said. 

“It’s the tenth. Of August.” Hunter’s voice startled them. He was supposed to be sleeping, leaned up against the side of their hole with his arms crossed over his lanky chest and his helmet down to shield his eyes from the sun. 

“How do you know that?” Fitz asked. He was the scientist, he should be able to keep track of these things. From the… sun, or moon or something like that. 

“Incoming communication this morning,” Hunter said. Oh. Well fine. Fitz snorted and went back to watching the terrain outside their hole. They had been staving off German attacks for two days, according to Hunter’s math.

“What’s going on?” Fitz asked. 

“Well the Germans have us pinned down by artillery fire and the occasional tank, and we’re waiting for the Worthington Force to come rescue us but apparently they set off last night and they haven’t shown up, so you can be sure they’ve been waylaid somewhere. So now we’ll probably have to wait for someone to rescue them and then come get us, because we’re pretty far down the goddamn priority list, if you ask me,” Hunter spewed. Fitz rounded on him. 

“That’s not what I wanted to know, and you know that. I didn’t put the damn Germans here, so don’t bloody well take your boredom out on me!” 

Mack reached out a hand as if he was preparing to stop a fist fight from developing. “Fellas, come on. We’ve been in here for two days. That’s not that bad, all things considered.” 

Fitz’s head swung around like a snake with a new target. “All things considered? All things considered? Why don’t you consider what we could be doing right now instead of waiting around for the bleeding army to figure out if they’re coming or going? We could be resting! Or eating! Or God forbid finding somewhere to shower. Jemma mentioned foot fungus and I for one have been getting a little leary of my toes-” 

“She’s Jemma now?” Of course that was the part Mack would pick up on, of course it was. Fitz slumped against the side of the foxhole, suddenly deflated. 

“Yeah.” He didn’t elaborate. 

“When did that happen?” Mack prodded. 

“I dunno. Does it matter? Can we please talk about something else?” Hunter and Mack cackled at his discomfort but thankfully they let it go. 

“What about you, Hunter? You got someone waiting for you?” Mack asked, winking at Fitz to let him know he was giving him an out. 

“I used to, but then she wrote me this lovely letter…” Hunter held up a grubby scrap of paper and the guys all winced. They had all heard of Dear John letters, and everyone had a friend or knew a guy who’d gotten one. It did explain Hunter’s recklessness, Fitz thought. “Bloody hellbeast she was.” Hunter launched into a story about his now ex-wife and Fitz settled down into the side of the hole to listen, thinking of Jemma Simmons. 

That evening the Argylls’ armored brigade rolled in on their position and hit the German lines like a tonne of bricks. They blasted through the remnants of the 12th SS Panzers and Fitz’s unit found themselves on their way back to Cramesnil, a little town just north of their newly established front line. As they drove, their radio came alive and let them know that they would be moving in on Argentan as soon as the Argylls had taken Hill 195, and Fitz could feel the morale drain out of their group. A moment later they regrouped and with faces set in tight lines, they settled into their APC to try to get some sleep. It was going to be a long war.


	7. November in Antwerp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The moment we've been waiting for...

It had been a long damn war, and they were only a few months into it. Jemma Simmons was sitting in the back of a jeep with her supplies and her tiny crew, on the move yet again. Just after Fitz had left for Falaise their group had joined up with a proper mobile hospital with a full staff. They were one of many small ambulance groups to be amalgamated into the larger hospitals after the initial invasion, and frankly Jemma was happy to have the help and the resources of the larger units. However, larger units meant more casualties, more work, and more bureaucracy than she had had before. Since then her hospital unit had been split up, shifted around, and reformed with other units more times than she cared to remember. 

“Where are we headed, again?” She asked. Simon North, her constant companion, snorted in his sleep. The ladies weren’t much better. Vanessa Hargrave shrugged and Elaine Dunham just looked bored. No one knew, no one cared. 

“Antwerp,” the driver called. Jemma smiled at him through the glass in thanks. Antwerp… she had heard their units were moving into Belgium, and that after a prolonged battle they had freed Antwerp for use of their port, but she hadn’t figured she’d be going there. More permanent hospitals were being set up all across France and she had thought she’d end up at one of those. 

“Do we know anyone in Antwerp?” She asked, not surprised to be met by the shrugs of her crew again. 

“Who are we being put with this time?” They kept being pushed through units because of their hospital mobilization technique, which some in the army thought was very useful, apparently. So far they had worked with the Canadian Nursing Service and quite a few U.S. medical groups, among others. Typically they would go in, show the unit there how they preferred to work, and stay until their orders changed. It was all a bit of a blur now, and as fall set in it was becoming a cold blur. Jemma sighed. She knew they were helping, saving people, but some days… it was hard to remember. She leaned her head back on the jeep’s canvas and closed her eyes, slipping into her favorite daydream. 

In it, she was back in England, working a nice job as a biological sciences researcher at a prestigious university. It didn’t matter which one, just that it had good resources and a bit of leeway for biology to work with engineering. Then they would get a lab together and she and Fitz would build gadgets to their hearts’ content. She hadn’t heard from him in a long time - since he left Caen for Falaise, actually, but she had put all her hope in the fact that the Allied mail service was pretty poor and he was in combat, not the alternative. In her daydream they would bicker and finish each other’s sentences and it would be lovely. Far lovelier than this. 

Jemma was, at heart, an optimist. She saw casualties come through her hospitals every single day, saw more people than she could count or cared to, saw dead lying forgotten by roadsides and in ditches, and she still thought that Fitz was out there somewhere. It was part of the reason she kept turning down offers by the hospitals’ commanders to have her stay. She kept moving, forever towards the front lines, thinking perhaps one day she would get lucky and find him. 

She couldn’t say what exactly drove her to keep moving. After all, he was only one person that she had known for a very short time in the middle of the most stressful situation in her life. If her research had taught her anything it was that it was easy to form baseless emotional attachments in times of chaos, attachments that would later shake out to be nothing at all. There was a good chance that Fitz had forgotten all about her, and that’s why she hadn’t heard from him. There was also a good chance he was dead, but she refused to entertain either of those possibilities. 

As usual, it only took a few minutes of imagining life in England to put her to sleep, and Simmons slept right up until their driver shook her awake and told her softly that they had arrived. Simmons tapped the others, waking them one by one and letting them know where they were. Then she hopped down out of the jeep. 

“Ness, stay with the stuff?” She asked. Vanessa nodded. They kept as much of their equipment as they could between moves, and to do so sometimes they had to be a little bit overprotective. Simon North jumped down after her and the two of them set off across camp to find out where they would be needed. 

They found out quickly that they were with the 29th Field Hospital, an American organization of 65 people and 150 hospital beds. Smaller than they were used to, but Simmons thought it might be a nice change of pace. Their commander was a friendly fellow by the name of Colonel Timmet, from Texas apparently. 

“You’ll set up with the nurses, over there,” Timmet said, walking briskly down the hallway. This hospital was being set up in an existing structure, called the St. Jozef Preventorium. Timmet pointed at a row of little rooms in the hallway with a hastily drawn “nurses” sign on it, and then looked pointedly at Simon. 

“If you want to bunk with the doctors, you’ll be over there,” he said, pointing at another couple of rooms. Simon raised an eyebrow at Jemma, but she was too tired to take the bait. 

“Actually sir, we only have two nurses with us. Simmons here is a doctor,” Simon said. 

Timmet grunted but kept moving. “Alright then. You’ll want to bunk together, I assume. You can all stay in the nurses area, no harm. Get your gear setup and then come see me in the mess. We’ll go over duty rosters. Oh and keep an eye out, we’ve been getting a lot of flak lately from fly-bys.” 

They nodded and he veered off down a different hall. Simon and Jemma made their way back outside to their waiting jeep to start unloading their gear. Hargrave and Dunham were there and had nearly all of their things already grouped up and ready to move. They had done this so many times by now that they were an efficient team, and everyone knew exactly what to do. 

“Alright ladies, we’ve got our orders. We’re bunking indoors, that’ll be a nice change,” Simon said to them. Nessa smiled a little and Dunham grunted, lighting another cigarette. Simon buffeted Dunham in the shoulder, cajoling, “Come on Elaine, smile. This place is a lot nicer than our last.” 

Dunham glared at him. “Our last place was a shithole. Anywhere would be nicer than that,” she declared. Simmons laughed, and after a brief pause the others did too. 

“Come on, folks, let’s get this show inside,” she said, and picked up a crate sitting on top of their little cooling unit. She felt a little pang every time she saw it, and as she did every time she saw it she hoped he was out there somewhere, all right and safe. 

*

It was a small team of people for a large hospital, but somehow they made it work. The engineers with the 30th General Hospital organization were retrofitting a building at Pulderbos whilst they were working in St. Jozef, so everyone knew this place was temporary. 

“It’s a good damn thing this place is temporary,” Elaine would say whenever someone gave her a chance to grouse about it. “No hot water, no heat, not near enough toilets, and it’s always fucking damp. Who’s idea was it to put us in here?” 

And Simon would calmly remind her that compared to the bog they had been operating in before this building with its lights and beds was pretty decent. Jemma would sit and watch them bicker, smiling at their obvious flirtation while she smoked or grabbed a bite to eat. 

The hospital wasn’t absurdly busy, what with Antwerp being fairly peaceful now that they were liberated. The Dutch were incredibly nice to their liberators, and all in all it could be a lot worse. They mostly saw patients from the antiaircraft artillery units around the city, and most of those were bomb victims. 

They had just finished up with another set of patients from one of the antiaircraft batteries that had been bombed late in the evening when Jemma stepped outside for a quick breather. It was damp in her room, and she was developing a cough due to the cold and the wet. If she was going to treat herself, she would probably recommend not smoking to exacerbate her illness, but then, she had never been good at taking her own medicine. 

As usual in the port evening was a time of great activity. Tonight troops were on the move, coming in, it looked like. Simmons watched them with a passing interest as they marched by, most of the men draped across vehicles so they could rest their tired feet. It was late enough to be getting dark and she couldn’t see their patches from where she sat, but they looked to be in British uniforms, maybe First Canadian - she had heard they were in the area. She looked down to stub her cigarette out on the step below her when she heard her name being called. 

“Simmons? Jemma Simmons? Jem!” Her heart stopped. She would know that voice anywhere. It had been in her dreams more often than she could count. She stood up, looking frantically around. 

There. 

She couldn’t breathe. He looked exactly as she remembered him, skinny and sharp and exhausted. He hadn’t shaved in a couple days, but she kind of liked the stubble look on him. The bags under his eyes were dark; he had been in action. He was, as always, dusty. He was also leaping down off the APC he was riding in and jogging towards her, since she was too petrified to move. 

Her voice started working before any of the rest of her did. “Fitz!” She called. Then her feet came back and she wobbled down a step. Her ears were ringing. “Fitz!” He was running now, and she couldn’t help the smile stretching across her face so wide it was almost painful. The ringing in her ears got louder, and she frowned. She wasn’t in shock, was she? 

The world was like crystal. Fitz’s brow furrowed and she saw it as if she were standing a foot away from him, able to reach out and touch his lovely skin. His eyes flicked up at the sky and her brain clicked into sync with his. She too looked up, just in time to watch the shell hit the hospital. Then the world was fire and she was flying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry :(


	8. Alone in Antwerp, November

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fitz wakes up from the big bang.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I'm gonna warn you guys: brace yourselves. I have enough chapters written to post every 2 days for the next couple weeks, and the story maaaaay get darker before it gets brighter. I hope you enjoy it anyways though, and just know I'm not one to leave things undone.

Fitz woke up in a bed. It was soft and he was comfortable, though the side of his head felt oddly… wooly, if that was a way heads could feel. He blinked at his surroundings for a moment and then the last thing he remembered came crashing down on him and he was standing without realizing he was performing the action required to get there. Doctors were rushing to him from every corner of the crowded hospital mezzanine and he was yelling. 

“Jemma! Where is she? Jemma!” He tore out his I.V. and wobbled a few steps in whichever direction lead away from his bed and towards her. A doctor caught him by the arm when he stumbled and tried to steer him back to bed, murmuring platitudes. 

“No!” He was having none of it. “Where is she? Jemma!” 

“You need to calm down!” The doctor finally bellowed. “Sit down! We’ll find out. We’ll find out where she is.” The doctor sat him on his bed and signalled a nurse. As soon as the nurse was by his side the doctor left, reassuring him once again that he was going to find out where Simmons was. Fitz put his head in his hands, suddenly dizzy. 

“What happened?” He asked. 

“The Germans bombed the 29th Field Hospital at St. Jozef,” the nurse explained sympathetically. “You were caught in the blast and thrown clear.” 

He didn’t remember that. The only thing he remembered was seeing her, seeing the look on her face when she finally spotted him. It was like no time had passed, like he was back in Caen and visiting her after being out in the field laying cables. She had smiled at him so wide he thought it would break his heart, and she had stumbled down a step like she hadn’t been able to get her feet to work properly. He had run towards her, his feet taking off without his knowledge, though had he had command of his body he would have done the same damn thing. Then recognition of a whining noise and the sickening realization that that was a bomb and it was heading for Simmons. 

“I need my clothes,” he said to the nurse. “I need to find her. I need to find Simmons.” 

The nurse put her hands out like she hadn’t decided if she was going to stop him or support him, so he struggled upright again and looked around. Everyone in the hospital was watching him, including two people he knew didn't belong here: a short, sinister looking Asian lady and an older fellow with kind eyes. He looked past them, and when his eyes came back to the floor he spotted a set of clean fatigues beside his bed. He sat back down and reached for the pants. 

“You’re not going to sit still, are you?” The nurse sighed. 

“No. I have to find her. I promised,” he said, half delirious with pain. The whole side of his head hurt and he was having trouble moving the fingers of his right hand since they were swaddled in bandages until they resembled sausages. 

“Let me help you,” she said. She maneuvered his foot into his pant leg, and then the other one. He stood back up, resting a hand on her shoulder to keep his balance, and she helped him slide the pants all the way on. The shirt took only a few moments longer, and then Fitz felt ready enough to get going, though he didn’t have socks or a belt or his hat or anything else at all. 

“Leopold Fitz, correct?” Fitz spun around and came face to face with the man he had noticed earlier, the man with the kind eyes.. The man smiled gently, face creasing in well worn laugh lines. 

“I'm Phil Coulson. We've been looking for you,” he said. 

Fitz’s mind was clouded with fear for Jemma's safety and frankly he didn't care about these people. He looked past Coulson and said, “Well you've found me. What do you want?” 

“We have an offer for you, if you're interested. I know it’s not the best time, but-” 

“I'm not. Sorry mate,” he said. He brushed past Coulson and kept moving. 

“She's not here,” a female voice called. He spun again, clutching his head when it made him dizzy. The Asian lady was watching him carefully. 

“Doctor Simmons, right? She's not here,” she repeated. 

Fitz’s stomach dropped. His skin was tingly and he couldn't form a coherent thought. His mind was stuck in a loop - get to Simmons, get to Simmons. 

“Where is she?” He asked. His voice betrayed him, cracking on the last syllable. 

“She was medically discharged back to Paris this morning. She's being evacuated from there as soon as she's stable,” Coulson said. 

There was a roaring in Fitz’s ears and he couldn't see straight. She was being discharged. He would never see her again. 

“I have to get to her,” he mumbled. Coulson’s hands gripped his shoulders, forcing him to stop. He hadn't even been aware that he was moving again, heading for the door. 

“Are you going to leave your unit? Go AWOL? What happens to your friends then?” Coulson asked quietly. Fitz was shaking. He couldn't care less what happened to his friends. He needed to get to Jemma, tell her - 

“Who are you? What are you doing here? Why do you know where Jemma is?” The questions spilled out of him like distractions. 

“We came here to offer Simmons a job, just like you, when all this is over. We were told of her condition when we found out she wasn't here,” Coulson explained. Fitz was nodding but the words weren't sinking in. 

“I'm never going to see her again,” he whispered. His body felt heavy and numb. He was leaning on Coulson more than he should. “She's gone and I'm never going to see her again.” He sat down on his bed and put his head in his hands. Eventually, the Asian lady and Phil Coulson left and he was alone.

He didn't remember how long it was until he got back to his unit. He didn't remember talking to Trip or Mack or any of the others, but he must have because they all left him alone. He didn't remember what happened to Coulson and his companion. All he remembered was that Jemma Simmons was hundreds of miles away, on her way home, and she was gone.


	9. January in the Ardennes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the Battle of the Bulge, a long campaign through the Ardennes forest over the winter of 1944. This is where the war stuff starts to deviate into the Marvel stuff - we encounter Hydra for the first time. After this I will be switching to write more of the Marvel history perspective and less of the actual history perspective. Also, as this will incorporate some SSR stuff, this will be considered completely AU (no canon backstory, no canon history) from here on out. 
> 
> Also, Peggy Carter makes an appearance! 
> 
> Enjoy!

Fitz was breathing hard, his feet pounding across the pine needles and snow. Behind him he could hear Trip and Hunter bellowing for him to come back, but he wasn't listening and they knew he wasn't going to. He wanted to get his hands on one of those rifles. 

They were in Belgium now, in the Ardennes forest, having traversed the length of the coast to liberate the people there. Everywhere they went, they saw fighting: the Germans never gave up, and it was taking its toll. 

“Fucking idiot is going to get himself killed,” Hunter yelled at Mack. They were engaged with heavy resistance and as soon as the shooting started they had noticed something different. Some of these Germans were equipped with guns that fired bright blue pulses that vaporized anything they hit and of course Fitz was immediately fascinated. 

“Yeah, he's been doing a lot of that lately,” Mack yelled back. The words ‘ever since the hospital’ didn't need saying. 

“I'll go get him,” Trip called, and off he went. Mack just shook his head. Fitz had been on the rampage for months, doing his damnedest to die in battle. If you had asked at the start of the war Mack would have said he didn't have it in him, but there Fitz was, back pressed to a tree, popping out to take shots at the German carrying that weird pulsing rifle. So far it had been a miracle that they had managed to keep him - or each other - alive, and Mack didn't want to be there when their luck ran out. 

He watched Fitz spray bullets into the German position and then take off running again, Trip close on his heels. They rounded a thick stand of short pines and he couldn't see them anymore, but he could see three flashes of bright blue light and he could hear the gargled scream of someone dying. 

“Fitz! Trip!” Hunter bellowed. He was halfway out of their cover before Mack yanked him back down. 

“Don't be as stupid as they are,” Mack said once Hunter was flat on his back and out of immediate danger. They waited, guns up and at the ready. Though there were still scattered sounds of gunfire around them their little part of the forest was quiet. Mack was certain it was an eternity before the pine trees rustled and Fitz came tumbling out, weird rifle in hand. Trip was trailing him, shouting obscenities at him as they went. As soon as they were back in the foxhole Mack and Hunter joined in. 

“How could you be such a fool?” Hunter asked. “I've half a mind to get you medically discharged for being bloody mental!” 

Fitz's temper had run out. “Yeah? Well then why don't you? I know, it's because you need me and you know it.” 

“You think you aren't replaceable? Got news for you, mate, everyone is. Betya they even replaced your girlfriend-” unfortunately Hunter also had a temper, and his flared up whenever people under his command did stupid things. It also stopped him from recognizing Trip’s flailing hands and Mack’s wide eyes as the warnings they were, right up until Fitz's fist landed on his cheek. 

“Don't you say that about her!” He bellowed. “You don't say shit about her!” 

Mack's column-like arms encircled Fitz, pulling him back and stopping his second punch. 

“Fitz! This isn't like you, give it a break!” He hissed. Fitz struggled uselessly before surrendering. 

“Yeah, okay,” he said finally. Mack let him go. 

“You ever do that again I'm going to-” 

Fitz cut Hunter off. “You're going t’ what? Court martial me?” 

“Beat the living piss out of you, more likely,” Hunter muttered, but he let it go. This sort of thing was almost normal for Fitz now- picking fights, charging into danger, staying secluded and short tempered. He just… Hadn't had anything left to care with since he’d watched Jemma get blown up. Sure, she was alive somewhere, and he'd thought of trying to contact her, but he didn't even know where to start. So instead he poured all his energy into warfare. 

“Fitz…” Mack sighed. He'd tried to talk to Fitz but the man just wasn't listening, or didn't care to hear him. So he bit back his words about processing and dealing with grief and instead fingered the rifle Fitz had recovered. 

“Any idea how this thing works?” He asked, and was rewarded by Fitz’s eyes lighting up, even if only a little. 

“I don't know, but I'm going to find out. This sort of tech should be way beyond the SS,” he said. 

“Those guys weren't SS,” Trip protested. “Nah, they were something else.” 

Mack snorted. “Ain't that the last thing we need, a third party.” 

“Well if they're going to keep bringing stuff like this…” Fitz trailed off in obvious glee. 

“Those guns vaporize people, Fitz. They're not toys.” 

Fitz glared up at him, bright blue eyes drawn in narrow lines. “Of course not, I'm not a sadist. But I do want to know how they work.” 

*

“Okay basically, the power builds up here and then discharges down the barrel. The power interacts with matter and disintegrates it, but I'm not sure how. This power source… It's unlike anything I've ever seen. It almost seems… Biological,” Fitz said excitedly. The general he was addressing was an American by the name of Gonzales, and he did not look impressed. 

“So if I'm hearing you correctly you don't actually know how it works?” He rasped. 

Fitz shifted on his feet. “Well, um… Not exactly.” Gonzales sighed and started to stand up, but Fitz hurried on. “But I do know that this level of tech is way beyond the SS, and Trip - Sergeant Triplett- saw their uniforms and they aren't regular German troops.” 

Now Gonzales was paying attention. He pointed at Trip, who was standing a few feet away behind Fitz. “What did their uniforms look like, son?” 

“Black, with red insignias. Looked like a squid, maybe? Or an octopus? But with a skull instead of a head,” Trip said. Gonzales started cursing and Fitz knew he had been right. The general stood up and turned, signalling to one of his people. They spoke in low tones for a moment, then the man went scurrying off into the camp. The general was commanding a joint task force of commonwealth and American forces, and there were even rumours that Captain America might be part of his unit, though Fitz thought that was nonsense. Either way, he and Trip waited, trying not to get nervous as the wait grew longer and the general went about his paperwork. 

When eventually someone did approach the command tent and salute the general, Fitz was about ready to snap, never mind that it was a beautiful woman and never mind that she was in a wholly different uniform than he had seen before. 

“General,” she said. That piqued Fitz's interest; she was British as well. 

“Agent Carter,” Gonzales said, “I'd like you to meet Sapper Fitz and Sergeant Triplett of the 184. They picked up this rifle in combat yesterday.” He patted the weird rifle. Carter, who was oddly immaculate for a war zone with her black curls and bright red lipstick, immediately picked it up. 

“Hello boys,” she said absently, all her attention focused on the rifle. “Where exactly did you pick this up?” 

So they showed her on the General's map of the German countryside and answered all her questions about the fighting there. At the end of it Carter’s attention had shifted onto him and Trip and she looked almost speculative. 

“You're an engineer?” She asked Fitz. 

“Yes ma’am, 184 Field Company, Royal Engineers.” 

“No, before the army,” she smiled. 

Fitz blushed, just a little around the edges. “Oh, uh, yeah. Did my PhD at Oxford.” 

Her smile widened. “And you, Sergeant?” She asked Trip. 

“I've always been a soldier, ma’am,” he said. 

“But a good one,” Fitz blurted, “he's a - a good man.” He felt he owed Trip that much from all the times he'd risked his life to save Fitz's in the last couple months. Trip raised his eyebrows at Fitz and Fitz knew he would be getting harangued about it later. 

“I can see that,” Agent Carter murmured. She apparently came to a decision about whatever she was mulling over, because she straightened and faced General Gonzales. 

“General I would like to request that these two men be transferred into my unit,” she said. 

Trip beat Fitz to protesting. “I'm sorry, ma’am, but we have a unit. Our friends are counting on us,” he said. 

“Sergeant your friends will keep fighting without you, I suspect. Don't you want to be in a position to do more to win this war?” She asked. 

“Permission to speak freely?” Trip asked the general. 

Fitz ploughed through Trip’s attempt to follow protocol. “I don't give a damn about your war,” he said, and he wasn't sure who he was saying it to, “I give a damn about my unit. Those are our friends and we won't abandon them.” 

“You will if Carter thinks you can do more good with her,” Gonzales said. Everyone looked at Agent Carter. 

“I do think you would,” she said and the bottom dropped out of Fitz's stomach. “But I won't force you to leave your unit.” She smiled at their obvious relief. “Come find me if you change your minds though. In the meantime, if you see any more of these guns would you mind collecting them?” 

They agreed and practically ran from the tent when the general dismissed them. Agent Carter and General Gonzales watched them until they were out of sight. 

“That's the man you told me about, isn't it?” Carter asked. “Fitz?” 

“Yes. We believe he could be a great asset to your mission.” 

“He would be, but not in his current condition. Have you told him about Doctor Simmons?” 

“No,” the general said somewhat sheepishly. 

“That's probably for the best.” 

Gonzales nodded. “We considered him a flight risk.” 

“Certainly. It's a shame though. Together, they are quite brilliant.” Agent Carter gathered up the rifle as she spoke. She saluted the general, who was already diving into his next stack of paperwork, and disappeared into the crowded camp.


	10. End of the Ardennes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is coming out so late in the day! We're right in the middle of Projects at school right now, so everything's a bit hectic. Anyways, I'm away this weekend so the next chapter will probably be up late on Sunday as well. 
> 
> Enjoy, and as always let me know what you think!

In any other circumstance, the Belgian countryside should have been beautiful. As it was, Fitz barely saw any of it. He was seated on the left tread guard of a Ram tank, draped over the pack on his lap. His eyes were glassy and he was a million miles away. Trip was snoring softly next to him, and Mack sat silent just past that. They were part of a rolling cavalcade of tanks, jeeps, and other vehicles, and anywhere he looked the men looked the same way he felt. They had been in this damn forest for over a month, right through Christmas. He had thought in the beginning that this would all be over by now, and yet here they were. 

To make matters worse, they kept encountering German forces with the odd blue rifles that could blow up anything in their path. It was easily the worst weapon Fitz had ever seen, even more so than mines or tanks. At least those left something that could be buried. He and his unit had collected as many of the rifles as possible but they hadn't heard any word back on whether or not the SSR could counter it. So they kept on, as it was the only thing they could do. 

“Hey Fitz, you got anything to eat?” Mack asked. They were set to resupply today when they reached camp but Mack was perpetually hungry. Fitz hummed an affirmative and rummaged through his pack. His fingers closed on what he thought was a pack of biscuits and he pulled it out. His mouth pulled down in a frown as he turned his notebook over in his hands. He hadn't looked through it since Falaise, when they realized they wouldn't be going back past Caen. He opened the notebook to his rough sketches of the handheld radio he and Jemma had come up with. He had added in notes about the toroid coil but had never adjusted the drawings to include it. 

He flipped through the pages with shaking fingers. There were their designs for the improved minesweeper, with notes on bio ceramic indicators written in her precise hand. He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. He would be lying if he said he didn't still think about her, even though he hadn't heard from her in months. He had tried to write her a couple letters, find out where she was and if she was alright, but his every effort had been repulsed for one reason or another. Wherever she was, either she or the powers that be didn’t want him to know. He had tried to put it out of his mind, but it was difficult. 

“Fitz? You got food, man?” Mack asked again. Fitz snapped out of his haze and glanced over at Mack. There was no question his friend knew what was going on, his eyes flicking from Fitz’s notepad to his face and back again. Fitz nodded slowly and fished through his bag again, this time finding the biscuits and tossing them to Mack. 

“Thanks. Listen man, just put it away. We’re slowing down anyways,” he said, nodding at the front of their convoy, where trucks were pulling off the path and into an existing camp. They were being sent as reinforcements for another brigade of the 3rd Canadian, and they had arrived. Fitz nudged Trip awake carefully, making sure his face was in Trip’s line of sight as he woke up. It was always best to see a friendly face when waking up in combat; at least that meant you weren’t immediately about to die. They jumped down off their tank as soon as it had rolled to a stop and fell in with the rest of the 184. 

Fitz noticed the blue flash in the forest to his left just before it hit the tank he had been sitting on moments ago and blew it up like a grenade. He launched himself at Trip, who was ahead of him and woefully unaware, and knocked him to the ground. Shrapnel from the exploding tank fell around them and a piece sliced across the back of Fitz’s leg, causing him to grunt in pain. The heat wave off the tank rolled over them. It felt like eons later that he was sitting up, fishing his confiscated Hydra rifle off his back and returning fire, though he still couldn’t see what he was shooting at. Trip took a second longer to recover, but quickly he too was up and fighting. 

Everything was on fire. The strange energy weapons disintegrated people but tended to blow up anything larger than that, and apparently they had been ambushed by a large unit. The tents of the 7th Brigade were all on fire, and things were still exploding. Fitz looked around for his unit and found people lying on the ground and scurrying to find cover, all silhouetted against a backdrop of whitish snow and blazing fire. 

“Trip! We need to find cover!” He yelled. The roar of flames was so loud he could barely hear the gunfire, but all around him people were being hit by blue energy and vaporizing. Trip scanned around them. 

“There is no cover!” He shouted back. And there wasn’t. Vehicles were rapidly disappearing into fireballs, there were no foxholes around, and even trees weren’t safe from the weapons. 

Fitz’s world slowed to a crawl, the way it had when he realized what was happening at the hospital in Antwerp. He looked around for their friends and didn’t see anyone, though the blaze of fire lit up the surrounding forest like it was midday. He looked for cover and didn’t see any except for a paltry stack of crates, and when he swung his head back again he saw men in black uniforms converging on the camp. He grabbed Trip by the arm and hauled him behind the crates, since they were better than nothing. He rushed to set his rifle up over the lip of one crate and sighted in on one of the Hydra men. The man disintegrated like he had never existed at all and Fitz swung his gun on to the next one. 

“Stop!” Someone shouted. A cold barrel pressed against the back of Fitz’s neck and he stilled. Stop was about the only German word he knew, and that was only because it was the same as its English counterpart, but he got the message. He knew that Hydra had been taking prisoners at every opportunity, and as he looked around their burning camp and realized he and Trip were the only ones he could still see alive, he knew what was coming. The German shouted something at them and jerked his rifle tip up, which Fitz took to mean stand up. He did so slowly, relieved when that didn’t result in his death. Trip stood up beside him. Fitz glanced over at him and wasn’t surprised to find his friend tight-lipped in anger. The German nudged them with the rifle and indicated they should walk out to the center of the clearing where the camp had been, where more Hydra soldiers were now milling about. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Trip was muttering. That got him a hard shove with the rifle barrel and another “Stop!” from the soldier. 

“They’re not going to kill us,” Fitz murmured at him, “They’re going to take us hostage.” 

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,” Trip said. The rifle clubbed Fitz in the back of the head hard enough to make him stumble and see stars, but he got the point and shut up. His mind was racing a mile a minute. No one had come back from the Hydra camps, no one. Fitz cursed silently; this was not the way he had pictured his war ending. He was half-tempted to run or fight or do anything that might make them shoot him, but that would probably end with Trip’s death as well and he wasn’t quite willing to sacrifice his friend. No, there had to be another way. 

He was still telling himself that as they sat him and Trip down in the middle of the camp and tied their hands and feet, before leaving them under guard so they could round up more prisoners. Luckily, Mack and Hunter were not among those brought out, and Fitz chose to believe that that was because they had evaded capture, not because they were dead. One man tried to run after he was found in the wreckage of a jeep and they shot him, cold as ice. Once the camp was clear and everything that could be lit on fire was burning, they pulled a truck into the clearing and loaded the prisoners into it. Fitz struggled to stay by Trip as they went, and ended up huddled on the floor of the truck with his back to Trip’s and his feet braced against the wall. 

“This is not fucking good,” Trip said as they pulled away from the Allied camp. 

“We’re going to get out,” Fitz replied, but he knew they were hollow words even as he said them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry :(


	11. April in New York

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally we see Jemma again!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me so long to post this... 4 whole days!! I'm in my last week of Projects at school so everything is quite hectic. Anyways, here is Jemma, back again after all this time. Let me know what you think!

December 13 

_Fitz,_

_I'm alive. I don't know where you are and I don't know if this will ever reach you, but I'm alive. I'm working with the SSR in Paris, though I can't do much due to my condition. I'm sure you understand why I haven't written to you sooner… I've been quite ill, and the road to recovery is a long one. Simon and Elaine and Vanessa are all dead, Fitz. I couldn’t believe it when they told me… we were together since the beginning, and now they’re gone. I miss them so._

_They tell me you're alright and you're back in action. Of course you are. Agent Carter said she was going to try to recruit you to come work here with us. I told her I doubted you'd leave your unit. Mack and Trip are your friends, I would feel terrible if you abandoned them for me. When this is all over, though, do come find me. You did say you would._

_Stay safe,  
Jemma _

December 25

_Dear Fitz,_

_Peggy (Agent Carter) told me she found you! She said you hadn't received my letter, but I already knew that. Army mail isn't exactly the best organized. Peggy said you're involved in the fighting in the Ardennes, which means you're encountering Hydra. She said this rifle she brought back was one found by you. It's odd to have something here that you sent. She also gave me your notes on it. Quite right, I think, it is an energy weapon but we don't know what kind of power source it uses. If you were here, I'm sure we'd have it sorted in a moment, but that's that I suppose._

_In other news, I met Captain America! I helped Howard (Howard Stark) design his biometric suit. Steve’s lovely; I'm sure you would like him. Perhaps when this is over I can introduce you._

_Anyways, stay safe Fitz. I miss you.  
Jemma_

_Ps: Happy Christmas._

January 9

_Dear Fitz,_

_I've become suspicious of the mail system. Other communicae seem to come in and out with ease, but for some reason my letters never seem to reach you. My last letter was returned to me only yesterday, and I have a sinking feeling that this one will be too. I wonder if it's because of the SSR._

_However, on the off chance that this does make it through, I just wanted you to know that I'm thinking about you and I'm hoping you are safe. We keep hearing about men being taken prisoner by Hydra and since I've not heard from you… Well it leaves a lot open to speculation. It seems odd that we only spent those two months together outside of Caen; I feel like I've known you a lifetime. I hope that's not overwhelming._

_Regardless, please let me know you're safe. I miss you, and my science suffers without you, ha ha._

_Stay safe, and come find me when you're back,  
Jemma. _

March 22

_Fitz,_

_They tell me the end of the war is nigh. Our boys are moving into Germany, is it too much to hope that you're one of them? I have tried to contact your commander but I’ve not heard anything. I have this feeling in the pit of my stomach that you're gone, but I can't find out for certain. Please let me know you're safe. I'll keep looking for you until you do._

_Love Jemma._

April 25

_Fitz,_

_Apparently the war is all but over. Now comes the most difficult part: finding you. I did a bad thing, Fitz, I broke into the records and found out that you and Trip were captured. I've only told Steve but he says he'll help. We're going to find you, I promise. These letters are mostly for my benefit now but I think I'll keep writing them, on the chance that one day you'll get to read them. In the meantime, stay safe._

_Love Jemma._

Doctor Jemma Simmons sealed her latest letter with fingers that still shook from time to time and set it with her other letters on the highest shelf in her office. She didn't bother sending them anymore, since they had all been returned, but it made her feel better to write them. Her top shelf was stuffed full of letters from the last five months, and the shelf she had thought she would put replies on was empty. 

“Simmons? You okay?” Agent Bobbi Morse stuck her head in the door of Simmons’ office and smiled softly at her. Jemma wanted to sigh and ask her to leave, but she knew Bobbi was just trying to take care of her. 

“I'm fine, thank you. Have you heard from Captain Rogers?” She asked, pasting on a smile. 

Bobbi’s face softened and she shook her head. “No, I'm sorry. I'm sure he’ll check in soon.” 

Jemma fought the urge to duck her head and cry. Captain Rogers and his Howling Commandos had been busting through Hydra bases like mad, liberating prisoners of war and bringing them home. Every time they did Jemma went to see them offload, and every time he wasn't there her heart sank a little further. It was at the point now that she nearly didn't go to the homecomings; it was too painful. Everything was too painful. She had a little photo of her ambulance unit, her and Simon North, Vanessa Hargrave, and Elaine Dunham on her shelf, but she had had to turn it around on her second day here. It was too hard to look at it. She had the rifle that Fitz had sent back with Agent Carter, but it was too much to work on it as well so she had sent it down to the lab to be analyzed. Everything was hard, and she didn’t really believe people like Peggy and Bobbi when they said it was going to get better. 

“In the meantime though you have that energy unit he brought back to work on, right?” Jemma knew Bobbi was trying to cheer her up and that she should at least try to be happy. They were doing good here, creating things that helped people and saved lives. She should be proud of that. 

“Right,” she said. Bobbi came in and put a hand around Jemma's waist to lead her out into the lab. 

“Everything’ll be alright,” her American friend said, “I promise.” 

Jemma choked back a snort. It wouldn't, the world would never be the same and the more time went on the more she was sure she wouldn't ever be either. 

“I'm being deployed again,” Bobbi said as they walked through the lab. Jemma's team waved or smiled at her as she limped past, and she tried to return their greetings. She never knew if it looked sincere enough to fool them or if everyone just played along with her charade, and frankly she supposed it didn't matter. 

“Where to?” She asked. It was easier to focus on Bobbi’s globetrotting exploits. 

“Moscow. But I'll come see you as soon as I get back, okay?” 

“Of course. Stay safe, won't you?” She tried to implore, but she and Bobbi both knew safe wasn't exactly her style. Jemma had patched her up more than a few times. Bobbi wrapped her up in a tight hug. 

“I'll try. Stay out of trouble,” she replied. Jemma patted her back and let her go, but made no such promise. If trouble was what it took to find Fitz, then in she would go. Bobbi gave her another squeeze and left, looking back a couple times to smile at Jemma. Jemma waited until Bob was up the stairs and out to the lobby of their New York building before she went to her station in the lab, where Steve’s every crystal was waiting for her. 

“Alright,” she said to the little blue object, her mind a million miles away with Fitz in some cold Hydra prison, “show me your secrets.”


	12. Sometime in Germany

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to Fitz!

One day, as they were marching Fitz to the lab, he had managed a glimpse out a door held open by a soldier speaking to someone outside. He saw a tree and its leaves were the fresh green of spring. But that was many such walks ago and he hadn't seen outside since. His days - or the time frame he assumed were days - consisted of that walk to the lab, interminable hours spent working in the lab, the walk back to their cage, and mercifully dreamless sleeps. He had still picked up very little German, and most of what he had learned were words related to the work he was forced to do, so he hadn't been able to glean information that way. Altogether Fitz felt like he lived in a void: no communication, no freedom, no hope. The only thing he anticipated all day was going back to his cell and ensuring that Trip was there too. That meant they had made it just one more day. 

He struggled to remember what that tank commander - the one he rode with that last day of his old life a thousand years ago - had said to him: it will end. Soon. But it didn't feel like it. 

It felt like being in transit. Like time wasn't real and he was just waiting for a destination, somewhere to arrive to. It was an end he thought he'd anticipated a while ago. 

“Guten Morgen Herr Fitz,” his guard said. He had picked up that much German. He didn't say anything though, not knowing how to swear in that language. His guard slid a plate of food through the grate of their cage and left. As soon as he did the prisoners fell on it like ravenous animals. There was a strict order to their chaos though, an order which had been enforced as soon as Fitz walked in the cage door. Everyone knew exactly how much food they got and it was a crime punishable by beating to take someone else's share. Fitz took the carefully ripped chunk of bread from Toulouse, a Frenchman captured in Paris, and ate the spoonfuls of gruel Trip offered him. Even this morning Trip smiled at him. Fitz didn't return the favour. Not anymore. 

After everyone had eaten the men sat back against the bars of the cage. Some of them tried to get a bit more sleep and some chatted quietly. Some leaned as far out of the bars as possible to communicate with the people in the next cages over - they got punished if they were too loud. It was a process they repeated every day: check in with one another, make sure everyone was alive, provide what they could for those who were suffering. It was never much, usually just an extra blanket or a couple more bites to eat, but it was something. 

The guards came around at the same time they did every morning, or at least what they presumed was the same time. They opened the cages and pulled out the people they wanted for the day, and off they went. They always wanted Fitz, having found out early on that he was an engineer. Today they wanted Trip as well, and Fitz hoped against hope that they would put Trip in the lab with him where he could at least keep an eye on him. But when they reached the hall that went to the lab Fitz was turned down it and Trip was not. Fitz glanced back at him as they parted and Trip nodded, as if in futile reassurance. Fitz wished he had any struggle left. 

This morning the lab was oddly quiet. The scientists spoke in hushed whispers and the fat man - Arzt Zola, he thought his name was - barely spoke at all except to bark orders. Fitz kept his head down and went straight to just station, where a jumble of tesseract crystals awaited his sorting. He wasn't sure if the word tesseract was a German identifier or if it was the actual name of the energy, but on all the plans and sketches he had managed to look at the blue power was called tesseract. Fitz’s job - his only job, since the reactor debacle - was to sort the crystals based on their energy readings. Day in day out he attached leads to the glowing blue balls, noted down their joules, and put them in appropriate boxes. It wasn't exactly thrilling, but it beat the hell out of some of the jobs Trip got.

It was fair to say that Trip continuously got the worst Hydra had to offer. He had been subject to five experiments so far, one of which had caused his skin to turn blue and had left him unable to eat for days. Trip would never say it, but everyone knew he suffered because he was black and he didn't fit the image the Nazis had of the Aryan super race. Fitz, on the other hand, did, though his ethnicity seemed to disqualify him from better treatment than the other men. He had gone through two experiment cycles so far and he still bore the scars of the last one. He shuddered. He had turned blue, gained super soldier-like strength, and had had hallucinations for days. He had nearly killed the entire medical team tasked with looking after him. 

Fitz dove into his pile of crystals, knowing the more he focused the faster his day would go. He had no idea how long they worked for, but he did know sleep never felt long enough. He managed to make it through most of the morning - he knew this because most of the Hydra personnel stopped to eat at some point - without incident, though an officer did smack him in the back with a cane once as he passed by. Fitz flinched and kept working. He used to get angry about little injustices like that, and angrier still about the cruelties of using them like lab rats. He didn't get angry anymore. They had beaten that out of him early on, and threatened him with Trip’s life if he didn't fall in line. 

It was mid-afternoon when he sensed a change in the air. If asked he wouldn't be able to specify what was different, but he knew something was. His body went on immediate alert and he kept his head down, trying not to look suspicious whilst keeping an eye out for whatever had Hydra all worked up. When armed guards burst into the lab and moved to surround Arzt Zola, Fitz knew it had come. He ducked down by his table, trying to stay out of sight and hopefully out of mind. The guards hurried Zola out a little door on the far wall. Fitz entertained the idea of following him for a split second, but logic prevailed. He would never make it. The choice was taken away from him moments later anyways, when the rest of the Hydra men in the lab began gathering up the prisoners. 

Fitz went without fuss when they got to him, letting them lead him back through the building to the cage. People were pouring in from around the compound, putting prisoners back and then rushing away again. They were shouting in German and everyone was armed. Fitz was thrown unceremoniously back into his cage and he immediately looked for Trip, but his friend wasn’t there. His stomach sank. 

“Toulouse, have y’ seen Trip?” He called. Toulouse shook his head. Fitz scanned the other cages, hoping he had just been put in the wrong one, but Trip was gone.


	13. Leaving Germany

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we go!

That night was probably the most tense Fitz had had since he arrived at the compound who knows how long ago. All night he sat against the bars of the cage, hoping that somehow Trip would appear. He never did. When morning rolled around and the guards didn't show up but the furor of shouting and gunfire continued, Fitz knew that he wasn't ever going to get a better chance. Normally they were under constant surveillance and what he was about to attempt would never have passed, but today… 

Pierre Toulouse was the first to notice. 

Fitz was scrabbling in the hard packed dirt in his corner of the cage, his fingernails scraping out little slivers of earth with every pass. 

“Fitz, what is it you are doing?” He asked in heavily accented English. 

“Digging,” Fitz snapped. 

“Oui, but for what? We know that the bars are too deep,” he said. They had, of course, tried digging before. 

“I know.” 

The Frenchman waited but no answer was forthcoming. The men looked at each other, but no one had a clue. They were used to despondent Fitz, the Fitz who rarely spoke, meekly went about his job and relied on Trip for morale. This energized, manically digging Fitz was new, and a bit alarming. 

“Trip didn't come back last night,” Fitz said as if it were an explanation. 

“We know,” this from an American called Henry, “and that's mighty awful, but-”

“No! No buts! I'm getting out of here and I'm going to find him,” Fitz growled. 

“Fitz… This is a futile endeavour,” Toulouse said it gently as if to soothe a wild animal. Fitz rounded on him. 

“You don't get it, do you?” He hissed, “me and Trip have been together since England. We were on the beach together. He's saved my life more times than I can count and I'm not going to leave him in some bloody Hydra prison to die!” 

Henry spoke up first. “Nobody’s arguing, Fitz. We all like Trip too. He's a good man.”

Fitz’s head came up from the dirt and he stared at them, eyes wide and full of anguish. “Then help me,” he said. 

“Ah merde. What do we do?” Toulouse asked. 

“You remember the last time they put me through that damned drug trial? The one that turned me blue? Well I kept some of the serum, just in case,” Fitz said as he pulled the little vial out of the ground triumphantly. 

Henry paled. He had been one of the worst hit by the drug trial, having gone through it twice, and barely surviving the last time. 

“Why in the hell would you keep that?” He asked, “it nearly killed you!” 

“Because it made me stronger,” Fitz said, “before it nearly killed me. Now I know you lot have been stealing as much as you can, so get it out. What've we got?” 

The group slowly pulled out the things they’d been secreting away and piled them up in the middle of the cage. Fitz sighed. It wasn't as much as he was hoping but it was better than it might have been. The pile consisted of a couple screwdrivers, a broken saw blade, a few extra ration bars, three francs, and an iron key. “To the arms locker,” Henry explained with a sly grin. “I got beat up pretty good for that one.” Fitz grinned at him, feeling optimistic for the first time in a while. 

Then Toulouse set a glowing blue ball on top of the pile. It was a tesseract crystal, and a functioning one at that. 

“Holy shit,” Henry whispered, “how the hell’d you get that?” 

“I hid it with some of the… Le mot? The not-working ones,” Toulouse said. Fitz positively beamed at him and clapped him on the shoulder. 

“Bloody hell Toulouse, you’ve saved our lives.” 

The Frenchman looked confused but as Fitz laid out his plan, his expression changed to one of understanding and anticipation. As he spoke, Fitz’s hands were busy attaching the broken saw blade to one of the screwdrivers with a strip of fabric he tore off his dirty jumpsuit. Once it was ready he and the others took turns sawing at one of the bars of the cage while the others sat with their backs to him and kept watch. The guards still hadn’t returned, but there was a steady clamor of noise in the compound around them that let them know something big was happening. 

They didn't bother sawing through the top of the bar. As soon as the bottom was off they simply put their shoulders into the thing and bent it up. Steel was only as strong as the structure it was welded into, and they had adrenaline on their side. The four men who were in the cage with Fitz scrambled out one after the other and when they were all out Fitz divided up their supplies. 

“We all know the drill?” He asked. Everyone nodded. They split up, with Fitz and Toulouse heading for the medical pods and the others heading for the armoury. Fitz wished they all had time to get weapons first, but he supposed the tesseract crystal would just have to do. 

“What do you think is happening up there?” Toulouse asked, breathing hard as they skidded around a corner. The compound shook from the unmistakable impact of an artillery round.

“Retry safe to say we're being attacked,” Fitz said. He rounded the last corridor to the medical wing and slid to a stop. There were still soldiers there, guarding the med doors. They saw him in his prisoner jumpsuit and raised their weapons, so he hightailed it back around the corner. 

“2 guards,” he said. Toulouse pulled the tesseract. Fitz grabbed his wrist before he could throw it. 

“No! We need that to get out of the compound. No, it's super soldier time.” He fished the vial out of his pocket. Toulouse was shaking his head, his wide brown eyes frantic. 

“That experiment almost killed you!” He said. 

“An’ it might again. Best shot we have, though.” Fitz drank the contents of the vial. It tasted just like he remembered, like cherries and soap and something blue. It hurt his throat the whole way down, and the second it hit his stomach he doubled over in pain. 

“Whatever happens, keep me moving,” he said to Toulouse. His friend gulped but nodded. 

Fitz closed his eyes and tried to breathe through it, as futile as that might be. The pain was overwhelming. His whole body felt like it was on fire, like his muscles were trying to explode out of a skin that was too small to fit them. He claws at the skin of his arms, taking over other long scars already there. Through the haze of pain and fear one voice came loud and clear, and when he heard it he knew he was almost done.

“Fitz?” She sounded exactly like he thought she should, like bells and warm tea, if that had a sound. He looked up from his wall-clutching hunch and there she was in her army fatigues, hair braided and pinned up, streaked with dust, her hands immaculate. 

“You're not here,” he said to her. Toulouse made a noise of surprise. She just smiled at him, her eyes full of pity. 

Fitz couldn't drag his eyes off of her, even if she wasn't real, but he could do his job. 

“Come in when it's clear,” he growled at Toulouse. He dug his new hard black talons into the wall and levered himself upright. Toulouse backed away from him, mouth agape and eyes fearful. The other man suddenly seemed a lot shorter. Fitz shifted his weight, trying to acclimatize to the changes the serum had wreaked on his body. When he thought he had a handle on it he charged. 

The Germans barely saw him coming. He was on them before they could draw their weapons and he threw one into the wall then punched the other. Neither got back up. Fitz whirled, the rage that came with this toxin already taking over. Toulouse pointed into the med wing. 

“That way, mon ami. We must find Trip!” 

Trip. That name brought out memories, so Fitz turned and shouldered the doors off their hinges. He barged through the medical wing, knocking aside anything that got in his way, people included. People especially. Everywhere he went she followed calmly. 

He, Toulouse, and the apparition of her ploughed through every pod of the medical wing without finding Trip. They liberated a couple other prisoners in pretty poor shape, but not Trip. At the end of it Fitz stood in the centre of the now destroyed medical facility and looked around, rage boiling in his skin. 

“Maybe they're hiding him,” she suggested quietly. He whirled on her. 

“Where?” He didn't recognize his own voice. Toulouse stepped back, clearly afraid. His eyes darted over the room but he couldn't see who Fitz was talking to. 

“Je ne sais pas, mon ami,” he said. Fitz growled. He looked back at her but she had moved; now she was standing near the door to the utilities sector. 

“The furnace,” she said, her face expressionless and eyes fixed on him. A wave of fury passed through him and he took hold of the doors just past her with both clawed hands, one on either side of her. It was only a small effort to rip the doors off their hinges and fling them away down the hall. She never flinched. Toulouse followed at a good distance. 

Wherever the fighting on the base had moved to, it had clearly come through here. The concrete walls were pocked with bullet holes and scorch marks from the tesseract rifles and dead Hyrda littered the floor. Occasionally a prisoner had been hit in the crossfire and every time he saw one Fitz would lean down and pull the dog tags off their necks. Toulouse caught on quickly and began helping him. She didn't, which surprised Fitz. She had always seemed so compassionate… but she wasn't here. He shook his head. It was getting harder to remember that. 

“Fitz, there's a guard around that corner,” she said, breaking a momentary calm at an intersection of hallways. Fitz growled at her. The sound came out more like a roar and dimly, in the back of his mind, he knew this wasn't him but he was powerless to stop it. He stuck his head around the corner to see the barrel of a rifle. He pulled back, but the man was quicker. Apparently seeing a blue, snarling man with black eyes pop his head around a corner made one a little jumpy. The bullet grazed the side of Fitz’s head, jerking his head around and throwing him off balance. 

He roared and charged. He swung out around the corner and ripped the rifle from the man’s hands, hurling the crushed metal down the hall. The man yelped and turned to flee. Fitz grabbed him by the neck before he could move more than a step, and torqued his head sideways. His neck snapped with a sick thud which he knew would reverberate through his nightmares, but now there was nothing standing between him and the furnace room. 

There has been rumours, of course, that Hydra used the furnaces to dispose of unruly prisoners. Word had gone round the last time prisoners were brought in of the Nazi death camps in Poland, and the Hydra compounds were no exception to the rule of extermination. They had just been lucky so far. 

The doors to the furnace rooms were half inch plate steel, cast and set on roller barrels. Fitz jammed his claws into the seam if the two doors and pulled, his teeth clenched and muscles straining. There was blood dripping down the side of his face from the bullet wound and his limbs were shaking, but he kept pulling until there was a crack, which he forced his hands further into. Toulouse stood by and watched as the doors slowly slid apart, and as soon as there was enough space he slid through. He was armed now, having divested some fallen man if his rifle, and his pockets were jingling with dog tags. He started shooting immediately. Fitz saw the force Toulouse was up against through the space in the door and roared, a surge of anger giving him the strength he needed to create enough space to get through. 

On the other side, a unit of Hydra had corralled some prisoners and were one by one shooting them and feeding them into the blazing furnace that heated the compound. Irrationally Fitz wondered why they hadn't just shot everyone, but then he saw that they were having the other prisoners drag the bodies to the furnace and he understood. He noticed all of this in a second though, as he was swinging his clawed hand at one soldier’s head. He connected painfully and wrenched the man’s head sideways, sending him spinning to the ground. Toulouse had shot several guards before they had figured out what was going on, and now he was taking cover behind a pipe and popping up to take shots at them. Fitz was not that careful. He barrelled into one man, picked him up, and hurled him across the room. The man hit a pipe headfirst and stayed down. Fitz yanked the weapon away from another man who had had the gall to turn his rifle on him and used the rifle to beat the man until he too fell down. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Fitz noticed the prisoners fighting back. They ganged up on one guard and took his rifle, despite one of them getting shot in the process. They knocked the guard out and then dragged him to the furnace. Fitz couldn't blame them. However, there was one guard left and he was lining up on the prisoners, so Fitz dove on him with a roar. The man got one shot off before Fitz's claws raked over his neck and blood gouted over him. He too fell and Fitz was left panting in the centre of the room with Toulouse and a pack of prisoners staring at him like the monster he had become. She was standing over beside the furnace door, unbothered by the heat, and she was smiling at him. 

“Trip?” He growled. Her smile widened and she nodded at the pack of prisoners. He looked over at them. They shifted apart so he could see a man sitting on the ground clutching his side, where fresh blood oozed from between his fingers. Trip grinned a weak, bent facsimile of his usual smile up at him. 

“Hey turbo,” he said, borrowing Mack’s nickname for Fitz, “I see you decided on something stupid to come rescue me.” 

“There are men coming, mon ami,” Toulouse called. He was tucked behind a leaf of the door and peering down the hall. Fitz’s world narrowed to protecting his friends. He barely heard Toulouse shouting and even then he didn't know what his friend was saying, he charged at the open door and the next thing he knew he was off his feet, flying through the air. His head cracked against the wall on his way down and to his great dismay, his world went black.


	14. September in New York

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fitz and Simmons... Simmons and Fitz! They're back!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in posting this, I am in the middle of exams at school :) but enjoy anyways!

Fall in New York was beautiful, she had to admit. While Jemma was busy admiring the scenery Peggy was saying something to the diner’s cook that made him laugh and give them an extra croissant for free, and Bobbi, back from Moscow and all patched up, was flirting uproariously with the bus boy. Simmons watched her friends and tried to smile, tried to be present in the moment, but it was difficult. The war had ended weeks ago and still there was no news of Fitz. Captain Rogers’ plane had gone down over the arctic shortly after the end of the war, which Peggy seemed to be handling surprisingly well, but Jemma just couldn't process that Fitz was gone. 

The ladies of the SSR were spectacularly nice about everything, even normally distant Melinda May. They took Peggy and Jemma out for dinners and dancing, brought them tea at work, and generally kept them busy, but it wasn't the same and when Jemma saw Peggy in quiet moments she knew the Agent felt it as well. There was a distinct sadness behind her eyes that Jemma knew was reflected in her own.

But life at the SSR continued, and the ladies kept going. She, Bobbi and Peggy got their breakfast from the diner and walked to the phone company building, chatting on the way about the weather and Peggy’s new living situation. After the war had died down, the SSR had changed quite a bit. Where during the war they had been willing to let Peggy and Bobbi in the field now they were trying to tie the two to desks and treat them more like secretaries. Neither woman was having it, and Jemma had witnessed Melinda May kick her superior officer through a desk when he told her she was too delicate for field work. One way or the other, she knew, nothing would stop the women of the SSR for long. 

She, on the other hand, was quite happy with her assignments. She was the lead biochemical doctor on the Hydra project, which allowed her to study all the Hydra artefacts they brought in. It also meant she had had to treat more than a few wounded soldiers brought back from Hydra labs, but Hydra tech was far beyond their own and she loved figuring out how the things worked. The only problem was every time she encountered a new machine she would think of Fitz and how much he would love to be there, dismantling tech and bickering with her. As time went on though that feeling of missing him diminished to a bearable ache, and part of her felt like those few months in France were a dream. 

“Earth to Jemma, are you in there?” Bobbi asked, breaking Simmons out of her reverie. Jemma smiled apologetically. 

“I'm sorry, I was just thinking,” she said. 

Bobbi didn't bother asking about what; she already knew. “Well I asked if you were having any luck with the tesseract energy. That stuff could power the city,” she said. 

“It could. But I don't have the apparatus that Hydra used to extract the power from the crystal and without that I'm not really sure where to begin,” Jemma said. It was supremely frustrating. 

“I'll keep my eyes open,” Bobbi promised. Jemma nodded and the conversation moved on to Howard Stark. Jemma listened with half her mind, most of her thoughts elsewhere. Stark was an old friend, the first person she had worked with at the SSR. No one had seen him in weeks though, and the higher ups were thinking of sending agents to find him. Their speculation of where he might be continued through the check in and on to the elevator, where the ladies finally split up, Bobbi and Peggy went upstairs, and Simmons headed down towards the labs. The two agents promised to come get her for lunch, knowing full well she wouldn't eat otherwise. 

It was only once Jemma reached her lab that she allowed herself to breathe a small sigh of relief. She loved the ladies, she did, but sometimes their happiness was exhausting. She didn't know how Peggy managed it so well. Maybe because she had closure. She at least knew what had happened to Steve. Jemma smiled and said hello to all the techs in the lab and then dive straight into her work on the tesseract crystals, hoping she would get swept away in the minutiae of science and the day would pass quickly. 

She was lucky, today time did go quickly. By the time she looked up again it was nearing noon and the girls had just phoned to say they'd be down for lunch shortly. Jemma was glad for the break; the bloody crystals weren't responding to anything she was trying and it was supremely frustrating to have a potentially limitless source of energy sitting on her desk and be unable to access it. She decided to put the crystals on hold until at least after lunch, or until she had a new idea of how to get them working. 

However, as soon as Bobbi stuck her head in the door of the lab that hollow pit that Jemma had been working so hard to keep out of her stomach returned. Bobbi’s face was pinched and her eyebrows were tented on her forehead, a clear indication that she was about to drop news Jemma definitely didn’t want to hear. 

“It’s Team 3,” Bobbi said, “they brought a load of prisoners from a Hydra camp in Germany. There’s at least three wounded and one biological issue. Looks like they were testing that serum again.” 

Jemma took a deep breath. She did not want to go down there. She couldn’t count how many times she had gone to the loading bay and watched a team of agents bring in POWs. Every time, she got her hopes up that he would be one of them and he never was. She had settled for the ache of loss that pervaded her life - losing him, her entire ambulance unit, other people she had met and seen die, all those soldiers… she knew loss by now - but that didn’t mean she needed to go getting her hopes up again. She knew, though, what Bobbi was getting at. They wanted her down there. She had seen the serum Hydra had been testing to try to recreate Steve Rogers, but if this fellow was actually under the influence of it she would be able to get some great readings. 

“Fine,” she said. She picked up her sample kit and followed Bobbi to the elevator. They were quiet on the way down, though Jemma could feel Bobbi fidgeting beside her like she wanted to say something. They were nearly at the bottom of the lift before Bobbi tried to speak to her. 

“You know, they’re coming in from near where-” 

“Don’t.” Jemma cut her off. “It’s easier if you… just don’t.” She smiled her sad smile up at her friend, who looked like all she wanted to do was make it better. Jemma wished she could. The elevator dinged and Jemma had to stop herself from running out. 

The loading bay of the SSR building was underground and made to look like a car park. Right now, several vans were lined up with their side doors open and people were rushing around helping the men climbing slowly out of the vans. Like all the Hydra POWs they had seen before these men were in navy blue jumpsuits and looked like they had been through hell. They had all had their heads shaved and as Jemma and Bobbi got closer to them it became apparent that all of them had at least been beaten, if not more than that. She couldn’t see a single one without cuts and scrapes. The medical team was on site under the command of Doctor Hollandy, a doctor Jemma knew quite well. Hollandy was calmly and efficiently triaging the men and so far it looked like most were only superficially wounded. The doctor saw Jemma coming and didn’t bother asking. He just pointed at the van at the far end of the line up, the only one with armed guards standing around it and no one coming out of it. 

“They’re down there. One severely wounded and one bio case. I tried to get the wounded man to the med bay but he won’t leave without his friend. He's in and out though. They’re all yours,” Hollandy called. Jemma waved at him and swerved to go to that van. Her mind was focused now, as it always was when there was a job to do. That was why she had stayed on with the SSR- they kept her busy and she knew that if she didn’t work all she would do was dwell in sadness. At least here she could help people and every once in awhile she could forget. 

So she walked briskly up to the van and past the line of agents guarding it, ignoring their protests. It was dim in the carpark and there were no lights in the interior of the van, but she could see that there were two stretchers laid out in there with bodies on them and at least one man sitting between the stretchers. The sitting man half-rose as she approached, hovering over the stretcher closest to her and reaching out as if to stop her. 

“Stay back!” he called. He had a French accent, Jemma noticed distantly, but she was much more interested in the person lying on the stretcher the Frenchman was protecting. Unless she was mistaking, the man on the stretcher was… blue. 

“Why?” She asked, her voice calm despite her interest. 

“He is… volatile. If you wake him he might hurt you.” The Frenchman’s face came into the light enough that Jemma could see him. He, like the other POWs, had no hair and there were dark circles under his eyes. He had a beak of a nose and a mouth that looked made for smiling, although right now it was pursed in a worried line. 

“What happened to him?” Jemma asked, keeping her distance. 

“He drank the German…. eh, drink?” He struggled for the word. 

“Serum?” She hinted. 

“Ah, oui. The serum. To rescue us. But it makes him tres fou, and he might hurt you.” 

Jemma nodded, her brain working to put all the pieces together. Mental instability was a known side effect of the German super soldier serum, but biological changes had so far been limited to internal damage and abnormal fingernail growth. This fellow was decidedly blue. 

“Are you alright?” She asked in the meantime. 

“Ah oui. Tres fatigue, mais bien.” She knew enough French to know he was okay, but tired. 

“And the other man in there? Is he alright?” 

“Non. He is… how you say? Dying. Bullet. But he will not leave without mon ami Fitz, so we wait.”


	15. September in New York Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I know some folks have had some predictions about this chapter, so time to see if you're right!

Jemma’s brain short circuited and her feet were moving before she or the Frenchman could stop her. She reached the side of the van and smoothed the blue man’s arm away from his face. Her fingers shook and she covered her mouth, willing herself not to burst into tears or scream. It was him. There was blood crusted on the side of his head from a gash near his temple, he had no hair, and his cheeks were far too hollow - he hadn’t been eating near enough - but it was him. At her touch he opened his eyes and she jumped. They were solid black instead of their usual lovely blue, the blue she had been imagining for months. He raised his arm in surprise and she absently noted the abnormal fingernail growth like black claws on the ends of his fingers. 

“Jem?” He muttered and though his voice was growly and deep it was unmistakably him. 

“Fitz…” Her eyes were swimming with tears and she blinked to clear them. He looked confused. 

“You're not here,” he muttered and rolled away from her, covering his face with his arm again. Jemma shuddered and her eyes flicked to the Frenchman. He just looked sad. 

“It is you, non? The woman he speaks of? When he has the serum he sees you,” the man said. That did her in. Jemma squeezed her eyes shut and let out a shaking sob, but it wasn't the time for collapsing into despair. She had Fitz back dammit and she wasn't going to give up on him that easily. 

“Fitz, it's me,” she said. She ran her fingertips down his blue arm - he had ripped his jumpsuit near off and his skin was weirdly hard - and he shivered from the contact. “It's Jemma.” He peeked out at her uncertainly so she kept talking, hoping that she could say something, anything to convince him she was here and not in his head. 

“You're in New York, Fitz, and I'm here. I missed you. I couldn't find you, but you came back to me like you promised.” 

He was staring at her now. “You're in my head,” he said with a little shake. Her fingers kept up their path up and down his arm. She tried to think how she could convince him, and hit on the answer as she watched her fingers travel. 

“Fitz when you saw me in your head did I have scars? From the explosion?” He flinched at her mention of it, but slowly shook his head. “Well I do.” She lifted her hand off him and rolled her sleeve up. The blast had caught her in the back and thrown her, leaving her with burns on the backs of her arms, legs, and torso. They could have been much worse, but the skin was still shiny and puckered. She showed him the back of her upper arm and the twist of scar tissue there from her slide across the gravel when she landed after being thrown by the bomb. 

He looked at her like he was seeing her for the first time. She knew she looked different - the blast had burnt off most of her hair, so it was only six inches long or so, and the sadness had taken its toll on her - and she worried he wouldn't like what he saw anymore. But then he hunched in on himself and crossed his arms protectively. 

“Don't look at me Jemma, I'm a monster. I shouldn't have come here,” he said. She couldn't have that. 

Jemma took a half step toward him so she was standing close enough to feel the unnatural heat radiating off his body and leaned down. He didn't stop her, though he looked like he wanted to. She ran her hands over his shoulders again and kissed his forehead, his cheeks, his eyelids, his nose. 

“No you're not,” she whispered, “you're my Fitz. Now let me help you, please?” 

He nodded slowly. Jemma’s combat medical training kicked into action. She glanced over at the Frenchman again and he levered himself out of the van, moving slowly enough that she knew he must be injured. He came to stand beside her and offered her a hand. 

“Bonjour, Doctor, I am Pierre Toulouse. It is a pleasure to finally meet you.” Jemma shook his hand with a small smile. She wasn’t surprised when Toulouse shifted to block the agents that were moving in to help her from getting to the van. 

“The other man is Antoine Triplett. You know him, oui?” He asked Jemma. She gasped. In all her fuss over Fitz she hadn’t thought to ask… She kissed Fitz’s forehead again and scrambled over his stretcher into the van. Trip was unconscious, but breathing. She could see the pallor of his skin even in the dim light and there was a dark stain of blood over his abdomen. Jemma stuck her head back out of the van and started yelling. 

“Hollandy!” She bellowed. The doctor looked up. “I’ve got a gunshot wound to the abdomen and significant blood loss. Get your people over here!” He gave her a thumbs up and rounded up two of his staff, then made his way to the van. 

“Fitz,” Jemma said, her voice lowering to an almost indecent murmur, “you need to let Toulouse take you to the lab. I’ll be right behind you.” 

He looked ready to argue, or panic, or both. She felt the same way, as if as soon as he disappeared from her view she would never find him again, but she wouldn’t forgive herself if Trip died because she was too wrapped up in Fitz to care for him. With great reluctance he let Toulouse sling his arm around his shoulders and haul him out of the van. An agent volunteered to take them to the lab and they limped away, two thin prisoners in a strange place. Jemma watched them go for a split second, fear warring with duty in her head, and then turned back to Trip. 

“Get that stretcher out of the way,” she ordered the other agents who had previously been pointing their guns at the van. She didn’t bother watching to see if they would do it. For a moment she was back in the mud and blood and noise of Caen and she just assumed they would do what she asked. She gently pulled the blood-crusted shirt away from Trip’s abdomen and started picking out bits of hastily-made bandage until she could see the wound. It was seeping blood slowly, but not nearly as quickly as it should have been. He had lost a lot of blood. When she prodded the edges of the wound Trip hissed and shifted. Jemma moved like lightning and pushed him back down to lie flat on the stretcher. 

“Trip, Trip it’s me. It’s Jemma Simmons. Do you remember me?” She asked. Someone climbed into the van behind her and she glanced over to see Hollandy opening his jump kit, unpacking supplies efficiently. 

Trip groaned, his eyes skittering over her face. His lips formed her name so quietly she couldn’t hear him, and then he slid off into unconsciousness again. 

“I’ve got him Simmons,” Hollandy assured her. “Go get samples from that blue fellow before he dies.” 

Jemma reeled back like she had been slapped. 

“He’s not going to die,” she hissed. 

Hollandy snorted. “Every other patient we’ve seen after that serum has been dead. You said yourself the human body can’t handle that stuff.” 

Tears tumbled down her cheeks before she could stop them and she huffed a shaky breath. Hollandy glanced over at her, finally noticing the effect of his words on her. His eyes went wide. 

“Oh shit. You know him, don’t you?” 

Jemma climbed out of the van and walked away without answering. She thought maybe she saw Bobbi on the way back to the elevator but frankly she didn’t care. All she wanted to was to get to the lab - to Fitz. Hollandy’s words were echoing through her mind and she choked on her tears. He wasn’t going to die - but Hollandy was right, they hadn’t seen anyone who had survived the German serum. They had all been dead specimens brought back in body bags. The elevator was mercilessly empty when the doors closed - if she saw that people waited to let her board alone she didn’t care - and as soon as it was moving she collapsed into a corner and sobbed. 

This was not what she had imagined, when she imagined finding Fitz again. Sure, she had thought he would be in rough shape due to being a prisoner of war, but not like this… She couldn’t have imagined this. 

“Buck up, Jemma,” she muttered, wiping the heels of her hands across her cheeks. “You either give up on him or don’t, but enough of this sob shite.” She pulled herself upright. Her breath was still shaky and the occasional tear still trickled out of her uncooperative eyes, but she dashed them away as soon as they landed. She had work to do, and Fitz wasn’t going to die on her watch. Not now. Not after all this. When the elevator doors opened on her floor she strode off, teary but resolute. 

She found Fitz and Toulouse in her lab, standing in the middle of it like they were uncertain what to do. Her lab techs were standing around the edges, as far away as they could, staring openly at Fitz. That got her anger up, and when she walked into her lab she was all business. 

“Tara, get the sample tray. Sam, get an IV set up and get me a nutrient drip. You’re going to need one of the large bore needles. Mr. Toulouse you said he had had the serum before?” Toulouse looked startled that she had addressed him but he straightened up and answered anyways. Her lab techs were scurrying around in the background. 

“Oui madame,” he said, “Twice. The second time he became blue.” 

“How did he survive?” 

“Tenacity,” Toulouse said, surprising a smile out of her. 

“Couldn’t die without you,” Fitz muttered. That took her smile away and replaced it with something much more gentle. She walked around so she was in front of Fitz’s drooping form. Toulouse was struggling to hold him up. She lifted Fitz’s head and kissed his cheeks again. 

“You’re not going to die, my love. Not a hope. Now, I have to take some samples from you. Try not to swipe me with those claws, alright?” He chuckled, his eyes closed. He looked like he was already half asleep. 

Sam, her lab assistant, came barreling back into the lab with a rolling exam table and skidded to a halt behind Toulouse and Fitz. Toulouse didn’t bother asking Jemma, just leaned Fitz backwards until he landed on the table. Between them Toulouse and Jemma maneuvered Fitz so he was lying properly on the table and then Tara came over with the sample set. 

“Thank you,” Jemma muttered to her tech, taking the sample kit from her, “Can you please take Mr. Toulouse to the medical wing?” Toulouse didn’t protest, but he did stop and pat Fitz’s shoulder. 

“Merci, mon ami. You saved us all.” He looked over at Jemma. “Take care of him, s’il vous plait.” 

“I will,” Jemma said, her focus on swabbing the inside of Fitz’s mouth for saliva. “I always will.”


	16. Shellshock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, right on schedule! So just as a warning, the rating is going to go up on Chapter 20, which is 4 chapters away. I played with the idea of upping the rating (if you know what I mean *most lascivious of winks*) before then, but as it played out it just seemed that anything sooner would be very forced. So carry on, wayward readers, and enjoy! 
> 
> -AO

For a moment as he woke up Fitz thought he was back in the medical lab in the Hydra compound. Bright lights shone on his face and hospital equipment beeped around him. The air smelled like antiseptic. When he moved his arm to try to shield his eyes from the light though his wrists were free, which could only mean one thing: Hydra had slipped up. He had an opportunity to escape and he had to take it. He slung his legs off the bed, wincing in pain. It felt like every bone in his body was made of powder, but he had felt this way before and knew how far he could go even injured. He forced his feet to the ground and slowly sat up, ripping a before unnoticed wire off his chest as he went. Alarms blared and Fitz muttered curses. Now he was on a time limit, and what with his condition that was not helpful. Then he heard a sharp intake of breath like someone waking up and he looked around. 

Jemma was up, awake, and pressing buttons before he could manage to say a word. When the alarm died off she leaned on his IV pole and they stared at each other. Fitz’s mind was having a hard time catching up to the fact that she was even there, and she was staring at him with eyes that looked like they were still in France. 

“Well aren't we a mess,” she managed. Fitz tried to control his breathing and relax as he remembered what had happened before. It was bleary and choppy like he had been in and out of consciousness but he did remember her, and Toulouse and Trip…

“Trip?” He croaked. She smiled a little rueful smile that never reached her eyes and he suddenly felt bad for asking for his friend first. 

“He's down in medical. They said he's going to pull through though,” she said. He sagged in relief. 

“Can I… Can I go there? See him?” He asked, and if he felt bad before it was nothing compared to the guilt that shot through him when her face fell. She covered it up as quickly as it came but he had still seen it. For the first time he noticed that her hair was mussed and her makeup was blurry, and there was an office chair with a blanket beside his bed. She had slept here. 

“Jemma-” 

“Of course. I'll get a wheelchair.” She strode out of the room before he could protest. 

Fitz groaned. Not even a day back and he was already screwing things up. He knew this would happen when he saw her again; he was too different now and so was she. Fitz started pulling the sticky tabs on his skin off. He was pulling on his IV when she came back pushing a wheelchair for him. She saw him untaping the needle in his arm and rushed him, firmly pushing his hands away and retaping the needle down. 

“Don't,” she said, frowning at him, “you're severely dehydrated and you need to rest. I shouldn't even be taking you to medical, I need to monitor you and you shouldn't be stressed, but-” 

“Jemma.” He stopped her with a hand on her scurrying fingers. His skin was less blue today, he noticed, and his black claw-like nails were cracking around the edges. They would fall off soon, if experience was any indication. Jemma but her lip and wouldn't look at him. Fitz didn't know what to do, but he knew he had to do something. She was rushing around like she couldn't stand to be near him and yet when her eyes did flick up to his they were full of pain and fear. It occurred to him that maybe she was just as nervous as he was. 

“I understand, Fitz,” she whispered. “They're your friends and you're worried about them. Let's go see them.” 

That was what this was? Fitz snorted. “Jemma,” he said again, hoping this time she would hear him. It felt damn good just to say her name and know she was here, in front of him. She was staring at him now and he found he didn't know what to say. I missed you, thank you, how are you all seemed so trite. So he settled for the words that had been rattling around his brain since he was captured and realized he wouldn't be coming to find her anytime soon. 

“I'm sorry,” he rasped, his own gaze glued to his knees now. 

She exhaled a shaky breath and her cool fingers lifted his chin so he had no choice but to look at her. Try as he might, he couldn't name the look in her eyes. 

“Oh Fitz,” she said, “for what?” 

He wanted to run, or hide, or look away but he found he couldn't. “For not coming back sooner. I should have…” His throat closed up and he couldn't finish. Her eyes were swimming with tears. When she hugged him, her face nestling into his neck and her sniffles echoing in his ear, it was all he could do just to wrap his arms around her. Her arms slid around his back and he spread his knees so he could tuck her in closer. He buried his face in her hair and breathed her in. She smelled, felt, and sounded exactly like he remembered, and it was like his body finally realized that she was really there. The tight knot that had been tangling his insides for months loosened and he shook with tears. Jemma pulled back at some point and kissed his cheeks, his forehead, his eyes, the corners of his lips. She stroked her thumbs over the sweep of his cheekbones and smiled at him when he wiped his eyes. 

“I never doubted you,” she said. All Fitz wanted to do was kiss her, but as he tightened his grip on her hips in preparation to pull her in closer she winced, and he remembered that he had claws. Because he drank the German super soldier formula. And he was blue. So he leaned his forehead on hers and they just stayed like that for a few moments, reveling in the fact that after everything that had happened they were together. 

“Come on,” Jemma said finally, “let's go see your friends.” 

She had to help him stand, and then help him sit into the wheelchair. Once she had him situated in the chair she pushed him out of the lab and down the hallway to the elevator. This building didn't look like what he's imagine for a secret intelligence force; it looked more like a hotel with its green wallpaper and sconce lighting. Jemma’s lab was brightly lit and packed full of equipment, but even it had a sort of homey feel. It was nice, but that didn't matter much to Fitz. What mattered was that it was different enough to the Hydra base to minimize flashbacks, which was a great relief. 

When they stopped at the elevator Jemma rushed around to press the button and Fitz, in science mode for the first time in forever, noticed a few things about her. Her hair was shorter than he remembered, for starters. She walked with a slight limp on her left, and when she raised her arm to push the button her hand shook. She also covered it up very quickly when she noticed him looking. She wouldn't quite meet his eyes. 

“It's from the - the bomb.” She explained. 

Fitz mouthed a soft “oh” but didn't have anything else. He had figured as much. 

“Your hair looks nice,” he offered. 

“Oh, thank you. It took a while to grow back after.” 

He winced. Of course it had burned off in the resultant fire. Hair was the first thing to go. He just could not get this right, and where the mood between them had been full of something… better a few moments ago now it was just awkward. 

“I was surprised that you don't have any scars from the bomb,” Jemma said, trying on a smile that didn't quite fit. 

“Yeah well I've changed my skin a couple times since then,” he said. He hadn't meant it to be dismissive or a reminder of how he'd suffered, but her face fell anyways. 

“Right. I'm sorry.” 

They stared at each other while the world's slowest elevator took its time to get to them. Jemma huffed a sigh and ran her shaky hand down her face. 

“We're no good at this, are we?” She asked. 

Fitz shook his head. His mind was whirring with conflicting thoughts and emotions - on the one hand, he wanted nothing more than to get up, push Jemma against the wall of the lift, and remind her how much he'd missed her. On the other hand, he couldn't fathom that she could possibly still want him after seeing him as he was now. He had no idea what she's been through and she couldn't imagine what he had either. It was like they were stuck on either side of a chasm and they didn't know how to cross it. But Fitz was and engineer, dammit, and he should be able to build a bridge. 

Speaking of building things - “Did you ever finish that radio we started?” He asked. Her eyes lit up and he knew his reach for science had been the right call. When in doubt always turn to science. 

“I have some ideas, yes, but I - well, I was waiting until you returned.” She blushed right up to her hairline and he couldn't help but smile at her. 

“I've had a bit of time to think about it and I think I have it sorted. Do you… Do you think you'll have time to work with me on it?” He asked. He braced himself for the no. After all, she was busy and he couldn't expect to come barging back into her life and fit right in - 

“Of course,” she said excitedly. The lift dinged open and Jemma rushed around his chair to push him in, chattering at him about the radio as they went. 

“I was thinking if we wrapped the toroid and jumped it into the circuit just after the transistor it’ll-” she started, but Fitz could see where she was going with that thought and jumped in. 

“Collect the power from the LPN and push it into the capacitor, exactly. Then we can reduce the size of the-” 

“Battery! That’ll bring the weight down significantly and make the radio small enough to be portable. But including the toroid could change the-”

“Power output, I know. So I thought we could use a series of resistors and a good potentiometer to regulate the voltage output and-”

“a small capacitor to even out the flow! Fitz that’s brilliant!” They grinned at each other and in that second Fitz knew that they were going to be okay. 

*

They were still working out the details of their new radio design when Jemma rolled Fitz into the infirmary. He was craned around in his wheelchair so he could see her and talk to her, but the sound of his name being called had him turning back around. When he did he saw Toulouse, Trip, Henry and the rest of the men from the prison camp waiting for him. They were sprawled across their cots, some of them reading, others playing cards, and some just yapping at each other but they all stopped when Fitz came in. 

Toulouse was the first one to get up and come to his chair. He shook Fitz’s blue hand heartily and clapped him on the shoulder. 

“Monsieur Fitz, it is good to see you. You are well, non?” 

Fitz returned his handshake. “Yeah, I'm alright. You?” 

“Oh, tres bien. The doctor says undernourishment and some… eh… Fractures? Oui. But all is well, non?” Toulouse’s long face beamed down at him and Fitz shook his head at how unflappable the Frenchman was. 

“Ah but you will want to see Monsieur Trip, non? Here, here.” Toulouse took over the wheelchair from Jemma and wheeled Fitz over to Trip’s bed. Trip sat up slowly as they approached, wincing and holding his side but grinning all the while. 

“Gotta say, Fitz, blue just isn't your color,” he jabbed. Fitz broke into a grin and Jemma couldn't help but smile to see it. Fitz looked happier than she had ever seen him, and given what she assumed he had gone through that was saying something. Making a quick decision, she went to the wall phone and called up to her lab. Tara answered on the fourth ring. 

“Biochem,” she said breathlessly. 

“Tara, can you please get Sam to move all of Fitz’s monitoring equipment down to medical? I'd like to keep him here,” Jemma asked. 

“Sure Doc, but you should see these test results first,” Tara said. 

“Which tests?” 

“Blood. The serum they gave Sapper Fitz? It's mostly alien.” 

Jemma stilled. “What do you mean?” 

“We've never seen anyone ingest anything with tesseract power in it until now. We have no biochemical or genetic markers that even come close to it. It's alien.” 

The bottom dropped out of Jemma's stomach. “What's it doing to him?” She asked, her eyes glued to where Fitz was surrounded by his friends, laughing and joking with them. 

“If it doesn't kill him? We don't know. He's the first person to take it that we've seen alive, so that's a good start,” Tara said gently. 

Jemma took a deep breath and like so many times before gathered herself back up. “Take blood samples from the rest of the men and analyze them for the serum. He can't be the only one they tested. And bring his monitoring equipment down here,” she ordered. 

“Why?” Tara asked, sounding genuinely confused. 

“Because he's smiling,” Jemma said. She hung up before Tara could question her further. She leaned her back against the wall and looked over at Fitz, her mind going a mile a minute. Alien. What was she supposed to do with that?


	17. A Rooftop in September

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D

There was something wrong with him. Fitz knew it like he knew he needed air to breathe. It was intrinsic, ingrained with every time Jemma scuttled away before he could talk to her or stopped and stared at him with a weird twist of fear and longing on her face. For some reason she had retreated into herself after that first day in the lab and he hadn't been able to connect with her since. There was only one logical explanation, given their circumstances: there was something wrong with him. 

There were a couple moments when she would pause the flurry of activity she surrounded herself with so she wouldn't have to face him and she would look at him, just look, and he would hope she'd say something, but she never did. She always just blushed and spun away again. He couldn't blame her, after all he had been gone for nearly a year and when he did come back he was… A bit different. But she had been in France. He had thought perhaps she might understand. 

Then there was the day his eyes had finally faded back to normal. They'd been going that way for a while but for some reason that morning she noticed. She stopped dead in her tracks and stared at him with wide eyes. Her shaking hand came up to cover her mouth and she couldn't help the tears that pooled across her cheeks. She reached over and just barely stroked the skin by his temple, and just as quickly snatched her hand away. 

“You look like yourself again,” she whispered, then spun on her heel and practically ran away. Fitz sighed but let her go. How could he expect any different? He was finally back to a semblance of normal after having been turned into some sort of otherworldly freak by a bloody mad science potion. Of course she wouldn't want anything to do with him. Or maybe she'd come to her senses and realized that they had only met briefly in Caen under awful circumstances and they didn't really know each other at all. He'd thought of all the reasons why she might be avoiding him. 

“Go after her, man,” Trip urged from his cot. Fitz ignored him and sat back down on his own cot. Jemma had moved him in here that first day, ostensibly because she didn't want to have tiptoe around him in her own lab. At least with him here it was a bit easier to avoid him. 

“What are you doing, Fitz? How long did we spend together over there, huh? And the whole time it was Simmons this and Simmons that and now you can't even talk to her? Come on.” Trip shook his head. “Pretty sad, man.” 

Fitz snorted. “Well sorry to disappoint.” 

“Oh you don't get off that easy. You been looking for a way to get here for months, Fitz. You don't get to throw it away-” 

Fitz snapped. “You think I want to? She doesn't want me, Trip. She's been avoiding me since I bloody got here.” 

“And that must be because you're some sort of weird alien now, right? You ever stop to think maybe she doesn't know what to say to you either?” Trip settled back on his cot, wincing as his movements jostled the bandages around his wound. Fitz didn't try to answer him. Of course he'd thought of that, but he'd dismissed the possibility that Jemma was unsure how to approach him. She'd been plenty hands-on the day he'd arrived. If she hadn’t been since then it must be for some other reason. 

Fitz leaned back on his cot and stared at the ceiling. This was not how he had pictured his coming home going. Of course, he had never expected to bust out of a Hydra prison by ingesting a mad scientist’s brew, but… and that whole time, while he had been in the prison and while he had been tearing it down he had been imagining her face. 

“Dammit!” He swore, punching a fist into the mattress. He was torn by indecision, and that was not a state he enjoyed being in. 

A pillow thudded into the back of his head. He glared over his shoulder at Trip, who was watching him with something like amusement and exasperation. 

“Go. After. Her. Or I will, and I’ll drag her back here and probably rip my stitches on the way… it’ll be a whole big scene,” he was smiling but the look in his eyes was deadly serious, so Fitz stood up. 

“And take your IV stand with you!” Trip called. 

“Yes mum,” he muttered, but he did what his friend said and he and his IV were soon rolling down the hall looking for Jemma Simmons. 

He was about halfway to the elevator, suspecting she’d gone back up to her lab, when the lift doors opened and a woman stepped out. She was familiar-looking, but he couldn’t place her dark curls and bright red lips. When she quirked a tight smile at him his brain pictured her surrounded by slush and green army tents and he remembered her. 

“Agent Carter,” he said when she walked up to him. 

“Sapper Fitz. How are you? You look fairly human again.” She smiled at him and this time the smile reached her eyes. 

“Yeah, getting there. I, um, heard about Captain Rogers. I’m sorry,” he said. Carter’s eyes lost their focus for a second, like she was a million miles away, but she brushed it off quickly and tried on a smile that didn’t quite fit. 

“Yes, well, Steve died doing what he did best. Saving everyone. Couldn’t really ask for more, could I?” She cleared her throat, obviously wanting to move on from that topic so Fitz let her. 

“Jemma - Doctor Simmons - said you were interested in working with her. I have to say, that would be wonderful. We wanted to recruit you and Jemma while you were in France, but obviously we missed our opportunity. I would be thrilled to have you working for us once you’re recovered.” 

Fitz didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t thought about what he would do now that the war was over and he was home. It had stopped occurring to him that he might make it out of the Hydra prison, so he had never thought through his plans for later. Now that he was here… 

“Well you think about it,” Carter said, “In the meantime, Jemma’s in her office. It’s beside her lab, third door on the left.” She smirked when he blinked at her, slanted him a knowing look that said it was obvious what he was after, and walked off, throwing him a grin in her wake. Fitz shook his head. Why did everyone here know so much more about what he wanted than he did? It was a bit unfair. 

He pondered what to say to Jemma all the way up the impossibly slow lift, and all the way to her office door. He still hadn’t come up with an opening line when his fist rapped the door, and when she opened it, her eyes bleary like she had been crying any inkling of what to say fled his mind. If he had had the ability to pull two thoughts together at that moment he would have cursed himself. He was a bloody engineer, for Christ’s sake. A genius. And he couldn't think of a single thing to say to her?

“You've been crying,” he blurted. 

She turned quickly away, mopping at her eyes and he cursed himself again. 

“What do you need, Fitz?” She asked. He stepped into her office as she moved away from him and his overactive mind registered minutiae like that it was tiny, lined with bookshelves full of knick knacks and books and bits of projects. Her desk was covered in blueprints and sheets of her precise notes. But that wasn't what interested him. 

He bit his lip to keep from saying he needed her and opted for a question instead. “I, um, you - did I upset you? In the lab?” 

“No, I just… I overreacted. I'm sorry.” She kept her back to him and he couldn't help but reach to stroke a hand down her arm, all those little moments of closeness in France ricocheting through his head.

“Jemma…” But she shied away from his touch and turned her brightest, fakest smile on him. 

“It's alright, Fitz, I'm fine. I'm sorry for making you worry.” She was clearly trying to shut down the conversation. Fitz cast his eyes skyward, trying to keep his patience. She'd been through hell too and it wasn't like he knew how to approach her any better - was that his name? That was definitely his name on a little brown envelope on her shelf. She saw him see it and squeaked, but she didn't stop him when he reached for it. 

His name and regiment were written on the envelope in her handwriting. He turned it over in his hands but it was sealed. He looked up at her; she was chewing her lip and couldn't quite meet his eyes. 

“What's this?” He asked. There were more letters on the shelf, he realized, dozens of them. The edges he could see all had the same information on them. 

Jemma looked like she was warring between snatching the letter back and running away. Fitz waited her out. 

“It's a letter I wrote you during the war, but it never reached you,” she said finally. She chewed her lip a bit - Fitz wishing all the while that he could kiss her so she wouldn't harm her perfect lips by worrying at them - and then she squared her shoulders and met his gaze. 

“You can read it, if you want.” Her fingers twitched uncontrollably and she snatched the letter out of his fingers. Fitz didn't move, completely flabbergasted by her actions. Didn't she just say - but she rummaged through the shelf of letters and found a particular one that she then handed to him. 

“But - this one first.” She shuffled the rest of the letters through her fingers until she had them in some sort of order, though how she knew what order that was he couldn't say, and then she sat the whole stack down on her desk. 

“Here,” she said, before she scurried out of the room like something was chasing her. 

Fitz considered going after her but the temptation of the letters was too great. He cracked the first one open gently, not wanting to damage anything she had gone to the trouble of making for him. 

The words on the page leapt out at him and he struggled to sit before he fell. 

Fitz,

I'm alive. I don't know where you are and I don't know if this will ever reach you, but I'm alive.

Fitz read through letter after letter, voraciously absorbing the way her words got steadier as time went on and she healed, the way her greeting changed from just his name to “dear”, the way her writing slanted more when she wrote something particularly sad like Captain Rogers dying. He frowned when she mentioned that her letters weren't reaching him and he had to pause when she said that Peggy Carter had found him. He remembered that, but Carter hadn’t said anything about Jemma when they met in the Ardennes. Why hadn't she said anything? 

But the letters continued and Fitz tacked that onto a list of questions he had to ask. Then in one letter she signed off with “Love Jemma” and he couldn't breathe. His fingers hovered reverently above her words, printed firmly and deliberately. Did she really? Love him? Darkly he wondered how she could. But that word popped up on every letter following and by the end he couldn't help but think maybe she meant it. Part of his brain tried to reconcile the power of her words with the way she'd been avoiding him by telling him she might have loved the idea of him, but the image of her kissing his cheeks when she found him kept popping into his head. By the last letter, he knew one thing for sure- he had to find her. 

The SSR base was big and he hadn't had a chance yet to wander around, so his search now was a sort of hapless meander. He went level by level, checking all the places he thought she might be. Her lab, the medical wing, the common rooms… All were devoid of Jemma Simmons. Eventually he made it up to the roof, and when he opened the door there she was. She was silhouetted against the rising sun - he had had no idea it was morning, actually - and her hair was blowing gently in the breeze. She was clutching her lab coat around her like she was cold, though he could feel from the doorway that it was a warm day. She was so insanely beautiful that his chest compressed and it was difficult to breathe for a second. 

She heard him open the door and she turned, spotting him over her shoulder. She looked pensive, calm but sad. He walked over and stood beside her, staring out at the city and the sunrise. It had been a very long time since he had seen so much space, cooped up as he had been in the Hydra prison and then here. He couldn't actually remember how long it had been since he had watched a sunrise. But that wasn't what he had come up here to do. 

“I read your letters,” he said, his voice far too calm for the way his insides were twisting up. She glanced at him, but didn't say anything. 

“Was that stuff true? Do you… Did you love me?” 

This time her eyes held his. “Yes,” she whispered. He canted a step closer to her. 

“Do you still?” Her fingers were tracing circles on the back of his hand and he couldn't quite remember when she'd picked it up. All he knew was that a blaze of heat followed the path of her fingers on his skin. Her eyes flicked down away from him and back up like she had decided something. 

“Yes,” she said. He closed the distance between them and pressed his lips to her. She took about a split second to respond and then her hands were on his shoulders and her mouth was opening slightly beneath his. Fitz wrapped a hand around her lower back and pulled her tighter into him, taking her little gasp as a good sign. He kissed her like he was trying to push all of his emotions, his gratitude and incredulity and hope into one motion, and she gave right back. 

When they broke apart Fitz leaned his forehead down on hers. She licked her lips, sending a little frisson of heat through his body with just that simple action. 

“Do you…”

“Of course. Second I saw you, probably,” he muttered, cutting her off before she needed to ask. Of course he loved her. A little smile ghosted across her lips and she licked them again just to watch him squirm, he was sure.

“What do you think we should do about it?” She asked quietly. Fitz let out a shaky breath. He stroked his hands down her arms to her elbows.

“For now… More of this,” he suggested, and all it took was one bit of a smile for him to capture her lips again.


	18. Fitz and The SSR, October

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so now we move into the next phase of the overarching plot of this story - the origins of Shield out of WW2. This phase is tentatively called "Ladies of the SSR are badass and underestimated." 
> 
> Also Fitz is interrogated, and we get a biiiit of reasoning as to why Peggy Carter didn't mention that Jemma was alive when they met in the forest in Belgium. Have fun folks! Also, some details of the Shield/SSR backstory have been changed for obvious reasons.

Two weeks. It had been nearly two weeks of fingers lingering when they passed in the halls, two weeks of her hovering near his bedside far longer than any of the others, two weeks of discrete kisses in the elevator or late at night. Two weeks of happiness that he never thought he deserved. And also two weeks of crippling boredom and far too much time to wonder why Agent Carter hadn't told him about Simmons when they met in the Ardennes. Fitz was going to go mad, either from lust or boredom and he wasn't sure which he preferred. 

The boredom was why, he reasoned, when he saw a team of SSR brass plus one Peggy Carter come into the medical wing he was all but ready to corner her and demand answers. He stood up from his bed, drawing the attention of the other men to their visitors, and took about two steps towards Carter before she caught his eye. She shook her head, a sharp, small movement meant specifically for him. Fitz paused and that was enough time for the man heading the group to reach him. The man extended a hand, his dark eyes inspecting Fitz with not a bit of the friendliness of his tone. 

“Chief Roger Dooley,” he said, “and you must be Sapper Leopold Fitz. I've heard a lot about you.” 

Fitz shook his hand somewhat warily. “Likewise sir. Thank you for saving us,” he said. 

Dooley shrugged. “It's the least we could do.” He moved on to shake hands with each of the others, and the rest of his group moved through the medical bay to meet and greet with him. Fitz shook more hands and grimaced at more people than he cared to remember, his eyes flicking distractedly back to Carter every chance he got. She stayed on the sidelines, watching every detail. He had no doubt she would remember everything about this little show. Eventually Dooley got to the point of it all though, making his way back to where Carter was standing and clearing his throat for their attention. 

“Well fellas, I’ve come to give you the good news. For the last couple weeks our agents have been working with your respective governments to secure your records and paperwork. Those of you finished your tours are being honorably discharged and those of you with more time are being sent home. I'm told by your doctors that you're all fit as fiddles, so the only thing left is a full debrief and then you're on your ways. Course we've arranged transportation back to your homes, so you don't need to worry about a thing. We're going to start debriefs this afternoon. They'll be led by Agent Sousa and his team -” he pointed to an agent with a leg brace and a cane - “and once you're clear you'll be free to go. I know you're probably itching to get a hold of your families. If you have any questions please direct them at Agent Carter, she's in charge of the POW rescue project. Thanks fellas, and thanks for your service.” Dooley strode out of the medical bay as soon as he was finished speaking, leaving the men muttering amongst themselves. Fitz focused on Sousa, the one conducting the debriefs. He looked nervous. 

“Alright, well, let's start from the top. Let's be clear, the Ultra missive is still in effect for any information regarding the war, so you aren't breaking any laws by talking to us,” Sousa said. Ultra was the codename for the Allied intelligence gathering operation. “Okay. Triplett, you're with Dorowitz, Toulouse, you're with Yauch, Hawkins you're with Morse -” 

“Fitz.” He nearly jumped out of his skin. Agent Carter had appeared beside him and was speaking very quietly without looking at him and barely moving her lips. 

“Where's Jemma?” Fitz asked immediately. It hadn't escaped his notice that none of the medical staff or other SSR staff were present today, when usually they were buzzing around like so many bees. 

“You won't be allowed to speak to any of the other agents until after your debrief,” Carter said.

“Why?” 

“Standard protocol.” He snorted; that sounded like a crock of shite to him. 

“Fitz, you were injected with that serum. You didn't take it willingly,” she said. Her words didn't sink in. 

“What?” He turned his head to stare at her. 

“Don't look at me! You were injected with the serum. You never took it willingly. And you never would have left your men, even if I had told you Agent Simmons was with us.” 

Fitz was starting to understand what she was getting at. “Why are you doing this?” 

“Jemma is my friend. And you're brilliant together but the only way you get to be together is if you say what I say.” Sousa glanced at them and Carter smiled disarmingly. Sousa coloured a bit, but he looked away. Fitz tried to process what she said. 

“You were-” 

“Protecting your future, yes. You said no to the transfer before I could explain about her. If you had said yes after you knew they would never let you work here. She's your weakness, stop showing it.” 

Fitz swallowed hard. For the last couple weeks he had been sorting through all the conceivable options as to why Peggy might have decided not to tell him about Jemma when they met in the Ardennes, but it hadn't occurred to him that she was trying to protect him. That was twice he'd been wrong about people in just as many weeks, and he didn’t like it. 

“Thank you,” he muttered. 

“I was in love, before. Least I can do.” Her eyebrows twitched under the weight of her sadness but she schooled her face back to polite disinterest very quickly. 

“-Fitz you're with Thompson. Alright fellas let's get started,” Sousa said. 

A tall, blonde, ridiculously symmetrical agent approached Fitz, everything about his swagger projecting confidence. He offered Fitz the hand that wasn’t full of paperwork. 

“Sapper Fitz I'm Agent Jack Thompson, how'd you do?” 

Fitz shook quickly. There was something about this man’s disarming smile and loose handshake that Fitz did not like. 

“Yeah, fine thanks,” he said. 

Thompson watched him critically, clearly evaluating him. He nodded at the door. “We're going upstairs, if you'll come with me.” 

Fitz followed the agent up to the top floor, a place he hadn't been before. Thompson led him through an open bullpen full of desks and other agents and then down a little hallway to an empty room. On the way they passed other little rooms and he spotted his friend Henry Hawkins in one with a female agent with long blonde hair. Thompson let Fitz into their interrogation room and gestured for him to sit down. Once they were both seated Thompson rifled through his file. 

“Alright. Please state your name and rank for the record,” he said. Fitz looked around. He didn't see any recording devices, but that big mirror along the wall behind Thompson sure looked like one way glass and he'd bet money there were folks on the other side. He remembered what Peggy had been trying to get at with her not-so-subtle warning. 

“Leopold Fitz, Sapper with the Royal Engineer Corps, 184 Field Company, 3rd Canadian Infantry Division,” he said. 

“And where were you last stationed?” 

“South of Liège, in Belgium.” 

“When were you captured?” 

“When we arrived at our forward operating position. January 15th, I think.” 

At this Thompson looked up from his file. “You think?” 

Fitz placed it, why Thompson bothered him. He recognized a soldier when he saw one, and Thompson had been a soldier. But he carried himself like he wasn't comfortable with it, like his confidence was bravado and he didn't believe it. Fitz would have put any money he had on the bet that Thompson was lauded as a hero when he got home and it made him uncomfortable. He would put even more money into betting that he, Fitz, made the agent extra uncomfortable by being a POW. 

“It's hard to remember exactly. We had been fighting through the forest around Liège and we hadn't had a day off in a while. You know how it was, right?” He said carefully. Thompson started to nod but caught himself. 

“Why were you captured?” He asked. Fitz’s eyes narrowed. “I mean, did you surrender?” 

If he were still blue, Fitz reasoned, he could have hurled this man right through that one way glass. “No. Hard to argue when your camp’s been blown to bits and they’ve guns pointed at your head,” he said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. 

“Did you fight back?” 

“What kind of a bloody question is that? Course we did. Right up until they overwhelmed us.” 

Thompson wouldn't meet Fitz's gaze. “Of course. Sorry.” 

When Fitz didn't say anything he forged on. “How long were you in the Nazi prison camp?” He asked. 

“Well for starters it wasn't a Nazi camp, it was a Hydra compound. Big difference. And pretty much from the day they captured us to the day your people got us out,” Fitz said, trying to decide if the man was dense or testing him. Maybe a bit of both. 

“Okay, let's talk about Hydra.”

Fitz sighed. It was going to be a long day. 

*

“And you never voluntarily took the serum?” Thompson repeated for probably the tenth time. Fitz pounded a fist on the table. 

“Look you can ask me as many times as you bloody well want to, the answer’s not going to change. No. I didn't have a choice. None of us did.” 

Thompson switched to his second favorite question. “And you had no idea Agent Simmons was with the SSR when Agent Carter tried to recruit you?” 

“None.” 

“If you did?” 

“I'd have still said no. I don't abandon my men, don't see why it's so hard for you to get that through your thick skull,” Fitz jabbed. To be honest, he wasn't sure if it was true. He'd like to think he'd search the ends of the earth for Jemma if he needed to, and he felt in his bones that that was true. But if it meant voluntarily letting his comrades suffer when he could prevent it… Well those were two instincts very much at war with one another. Either way, his answer seemed to have convinced whomever was on the other side of the glass because they knocked twice and Thompson nodded at the window. 

“Well Fitz, that was the sound of the all clear. Your debriefing is over,” he said. 

Fitz leaned back in his chair and allowed himself to relax a bit. “Great,” he said, making to stand up, “I'll be on my way then.” 

“Not so fast,” Thompson held out a hand to stop him. “The SSR has a proposition for you.” 

*

Jemma was pacing up and down the hallway from the elevator to her lab, chewing her thumbnail when he stepped off the lift. She spotted him and barely managed to keep herself to a walk as she strode towards him. Fitz couldn't help but smile at her; she looked so relieved to see him. She stopped just in front of him and her hand flitted out to rest on his chest. 

“Well?” She asked, her eyes searching his. 

“That was bloody awful,” he said. She chuckled.

“Mine was too. You passed though? You're clear?” The worry was evident on her face. 

“Yeah, I'm clear.” She sagged in relief and then lit up like a Christmas tree. She threw her arms around him, bouncing with excitement. 

“Oh that's great Fitz!” She pulled away from him. “What will you do now?” 

Fitz put on his best stoic face. “Well they said they'd pay for my fare back to Scotland, so…” 

He felt bad as soon as he said it. Her face fell and she tried to tuck it away behind a tremulous smile. “Well that's - that's lovely-” 

“Don't be daft, they offered me a job here with you and I took it. You'll have to work harder than that to get rid of me.” He had planned to tease her a little longer but he never had been able to see her sad. Jemma shrieked and again swept him up in a hug. He let himself be carried away by her excitement. After all, he got to stay with her and they would finally get to do science together - though hopefully that wasn't all they'd do together - there was basically no way this could be better. 

“Trip and Henry are going to work for the SSR too,” Jemma said when they calmed down a little, and Fitz was wrong. It could be better. 

“Toulouse?” He asked. 

She shook her head. “They offered but he's going back to France. He has a wife there.” 

“And a baby. Didn't figure he'd stay, but…”

“You'll miss him,” she finished his thought and kissed him softly when he nodded. 

“He's waiting to say goodbye to you. You're the last one out of debriefing.” 

Fitz snorted. Of course he was. Thompson was like a dog with a bone. It occurred to him though that it must be getting late in the day and he wasn't sure what happened now that he belonged to the SSR. 

“Guess I've got to figure out somewhere to stay, don't I?” He muttered, half to himself. 

Upon reflection he wondered if he was angling for Jemma’s response, but he was genuinely surprised when her face heated up and she whispered, “Or you could stay with me.” 

They stilled and stared at one another. 

Fitz’s throat was impossibly dry and he had to swallow a few times to get it to work. “Are you… Are we… Are you sure?” 

Jemma squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and said “Yes,” with more conviction than he had thought possible. He couldn't recall her looking any more beautiful than she did just then, her lips pressed together and a hint of uncertainty in her eyes, but all full of fire and hope. He closed the distance between them and pressed her into a messy, heated kiss. His lips slanted over hers and her tongue flicked over his lower lip and when they pulled apart they were both a little short of breath. 

“Okay,” Fitz managed, “let's go.”


	19. FitzSimmons in New York

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok folks, so NEXT chapter will be completely E rated. It is totally skippable, so if you don't want to read smut, wait until Dec. 20 th and skip right to Chapter 21. THIS chapter is marginally E, so y'know, be aware :)

The SSR loading bay was at once familiar and eerily foreign. Fitz remembered it from his arrival but it was like the memory was fuzzy around the edges, like he had just passed through without seeing it. Now, as he got a good look around, he realized there was a bit more to the SSR than he had thought. Their parkade was lined with vehicles from motorcycles to vans to upscale cars and at one end there were even two helicopters. Large stencilled signs on the walls denoted where to take munitions - though he couldn't see any of those from here - and how to access the building. 

The parkade was bustling with activity at the moment, just as it had been the last time he was in here, but this time it was to take his friends home. The men sure looked a lot less like half-starved POWs now, he had to admit, and every one of them was smiling. They thanked the SSR staff profusely, hugging and shaking hands with all the people that had helped them along the way. They shook hands with Fitz, Trip, and Henry Hawkins, who were standing on the sidelines, and they all swore to keep in touch. Fitz wasn't sure if this instance of being in the loading bay was any less surreal than the last time. 

He wanted to stay in touch with these men, that was for sure. After all, they had a bond now that was pretty damn hard to replicate. He just was fairly certain it wouldn't happen, and that made him remarkably sad. So he shook hands with each of the men and promised to write once they got home and promised to meet up as soon as possible and then each man would climb into a car and be driven away. Toulouse was the last to go. 

His friend chuckled his way through the line of doctors and techs who had nursed them back to health, charming as always, but his good spirit died when he came to Fitz. 

“Well mon ami,” he said, “here we are.” 

Fitz hummed. “Yup. You ready?” 

“Je ne sais pas. It is a big world out there, non?” His smile was a little less quick, a little less charming. A little more real. 

“Nothing to be afraid of,” Fitz said with a bravado he didn't feel. Toulouse’s words had struck the nail on the head. “You've got Cherise waiting for you and all.”

At that the Frenchman’s smile completely faded. “I spoke to her, yesterday, eh.” 

“And?”

“She is tres excite, to see me. But…” 

Fitz knew that look. “You're different now.” 

“Exactement. What if…” 

Fitz put his hands on Toulouse’s shoulders and gave him a bracing squeeze. “Hey, she won't care. You're coming home, Pierre. She won't care about the rest.” 

Toulouse drew him into a hug. “Ah you are the best of us, Monsieur Fitz. I know the others they say we will speak soon, but you, you must mean it, eh? We are brothers. Ne pas oublier.” Fitz clapped him on the back. 

“I won't. Safe travels, Toulouse. And thank you.”

His friend waved off his thanks like so much passing air. “De rien. It is what brothers do, non?” Fitz nodded at him. Toulouse was just as emotional saying goodbye to Henry and Trip, and when he finally climbed into his waiting car Fitz couldn't help but wish he could stay. As the car pulled away he felt Jemma’s slim fingers slide between his own and he squeezed her hand, grateful that she knew just what he needed without him having to ask. 

“Well Agent Fitz?” Trip asked once Toulouse’s car was out of view, “wanna grab a beer? Celebrate our new jobs? You could come too little lady.” He chuckled at Jemma and she smacked his arm. She did, however, bite her lip up at Fitz and he had to wonder how she could possibly think he was even entertaining the notion. 

“Sorry lads but we’ve got plans,” he said, and he tugged Jemma with him to head for the elevator. She blushed bright red at their hoots behind them, but she didn't let go of Fitz. The second the lift was moving she pinned him into the corner and kissed him, her mouth slanting over his and her tongue tracing his lower lip. She pulled his lip between her teeth and nipped gently, causing Fitz’s hands to spasm at her hips and snug her in against him. He had just smoothed his hand down her very soft skirt to lift her leg slightly when his stomach gave a god awful rumble to remind him that he'd been in debriefing damn near all day. Jemma froze. Fitz groaned and leaned his forehead down on her shoulder. 

“Hungry?” She asked him. 

“No, no, not at all.” He kissed her neck, delighting in her shiver. He sucked gently on her pulse point and she whimpered, and all was right in his world again - until he was betrayed by his demanding bodily systems a second time. Jemma giggled. 

“Are you sure?” She asked. Fitz sighed but straightened up. Apparently he needed to have a discussion with his body about priorities. 

“I'd not say no to some food, I suppose,” he said. 

“Good, because I'm starved,” she teased. The lift doors slid open and she led him into unfamiliar territory. It looked like they had landed in a telephone operator's’ workspace, but that couldn't be right. A row of ladies busily chatting on telephone headsets sat before them, and the one nearest them waved at Jemma as she tugged Fitz past. Out on the street, Jemma looked up and down the street and Fitz tried to take it all in. 

“Shall we catch a cab?” She asked. Fitz was barely listening. They were in the heart of New York, surrounded by tall buildings and brick and cars and more sounds than he could shake a stick at. The city was buzzing with life and he felt like a tiny cog in the machine. It was overwhelming, but at the same time enthralling. 

“Fitz. Should we take a cab?” She asked again, nudging him. 

“Hm? Sorry, I was, um… Well it's a bit overwhelming, actually. Haven't seen this many people in a while.” He squirmed a little admitting that, but she just nodded. 

“I know. When I got here I just kept thinking about how much damage could be done in a city like this with a couple bombardments, and how many places there are for snipers to hide, and… Yes, overwhelming was right,” she said. Fitz felt massively relieved. Of course she understood. He thought, a little guiltily, that it was nice that she could understand it. As much as he hated the thought of her in the war, in danger, he couldn't imagine coming home and trying to explain what he'd been through to someone who had no idea. 

“Tell you what, my apartment is just a couple blocks and there's a lovely chippie on the way - it's not Sheffield chips, of course, but it's pretty good. Would you like to walk?” She asked. 

Fitz lifted their interlaced fingers to his lips and kissed the back of her hand. 

“Chips sound fantastic,” he said. 

They walked slowly, taking in the sights and sounds of New York City. It was most beautiful in the fall, according to Jemma, and she pointed out every tree’s bright leaves as they passed. Fitz just listened to her chatter, enjoying how excited she was to show him her neighbourhood. At the chip shop, which sported British flags in the windows and a proprietor from Suffolk, they both ordered fish and chips and when it came Jemma could barely eat hers for laughing at the way Fitz gorged. 

“Decent?” She asked. 

Fitz had to swallow a lump of delicious potato to answer her and he was pretty sure he had tarter sauce down to his chin, but he regretted nothing. “It's alright,” he shrugged, sending her into another fit of giggles. He finished his in record time and was thrilled when the owner brought him another batch, declaring “Tommies eat their fill in my shop. Especially the King’s own, eh?” 

Fitz thanked the friendly man until he left, but when his gaze caught hers again he knew Jemma could see right through him. The idea of people treating him better because he had been conscripted into the war effort didn’t sit well with him, especially not after all the things he’d done. He didn’t deserve veneration from anyone. But even as he thought it Jemma’s hand covered his. 

“Don’t,” she said, “it just makes it harder. They don’t understand, so you might as well learn to live with it.” 

The thought that she had had to do the same - even more so given that she was a woman and people didn’t expect her to have served in the first place - crossed his mind, so he took a deep breath and went back to eating his chips. Jemma relaxed when he did. 

“Does it get easier?” He asked when they had left the shop and were back to walking, hand in hand. 

She considered. “It does. I mean, it got much easier once you were back.” Her face reddened and she ducked her head, unwilling to look at him. Her words had suffused him with warmth though and he squeezed her hand in his. 

“But yes, it does get easier. I think it will continue to do so as well.” 

His eyebrows rose. “Time heals all wounds?” 

“Something like that. Or we just get better at living with the memories. Either or,” she said. She stopped in front of the tall grated doorway of a brick apartment building. 

“Well,” she said, tucking her short brown hair behind her ear, “this is my building.” 

He wasn't sure why the gravity of the situation hit him then, but apparently it was hitting Jemma too. 

“If you, uh, want me to stay at a hotel I can-” he started, but she spoke over him. 

“If you'd rather stay somewhere else I can-” 

“No! I'd like to stay with you but-” 

“If you're uncomfortable, although you don't have any money-” 

“I mean, I’d understand if you -” 

“I’d like you to stay with me.” 

“But I’d like to stay with you.” They stopped and stared at each other. Jemma’s eyes were dancing and all vestiges of nerves from before were gone. 

“Shall we try that again?” She asked. 

He nodded. “You go first.” 

“Fitz, I would like you to stay with me as long as you want,” she said, veritably squirming from the effort it took to tell him that. He tugged on her fingers so she had to take a step towards him. Then he lifted her hands, one at a time, and set them around his waist before sliding his arms around her. 

“Thank you, I’d love to,” he said. Jemma’s face was so red he thought he could probably read from it’s light, and he wasn’t surprised when she buried her face in his shoulder for a moment. When she looked back up though she was smiling and she wasted no time in leading him into the building. 

Her apartment was on the third floor and her elevator was out - some sort of malfunction that Fitz was immediately interested in - so they walked up. Her grip on his fingers grew tighter the closer they got, and for all their agreement downstairs Fitz couldn’t help but be nervous. She let him into her apartment without a word, only dropping his hand so they could navigate the skinny entrance hall. She kicked her shoes off and turned the lights on in the same flourish. 

“Ta-da,” she said, the way she bit her lip a direct contrast to her flippant tone. Fitz took his shoes off and lined them up beside hers and then took a look around. Jemma was chattering, a sure indication of her nerves. 

“So this is the kitchenette and living room, and through that door is my room and the bathroom. That's pretty much it, sorry. It's a little small, I know, but I like it.” 

Her apartment was small, he'd give her that, but given that it was a bit bigger than the cage he'd shared with four other men for near a year, in his opinion she might as well be living in a bloody palace. It was brightened by big picture windows that faced out to the street, and it was exceedingly organized. It was also very colourful and decorated with cheerful little knick knacks, little ceramic animals she'd picked up and framed photos of people he didn't know. One such photo had four women in it, Jemma and three others. He recognized Peggy Carter and the blonde agent who had debriefed Henry Hawkins earlier today, as well as an Asian lady who he realized with a start he had met - in Belgium. She had been at the hospital… he couldn’t remember her name though. Someone had written “Ladies of SHIELD - Carter, Morse, Simmons and May.” 

“I think it’s a bit of a step up from what I’m used to,” he said, slanting a lopsided grin at her so she knew he was teasing, “What’s SHIELD?” 

Jemma was buzzing around the kitchen and by the time he turned around she had a teapot on her little stove. She waved his question away. “Just an idea Peggy and Agent May were throwing around. Tea?” 

“Cheers.” He realized he was standing in between the kitchen and the living room and he had no idea what to do with himself. Jemma passed him a cup of tea pretty quickly though, and set sugar and milk on the little table, her nervous chatter back in full force. 

“So I know you don’t really have any clothes except what they’ve leant you -” she indicated the trousers and shirt he had been given before being loosed upon the real world - “but Dooley agreed to give us a budget to get you and Trip and Henry some new things, at least until your first paychecks start coming in. Maybe we could go shopping tomorrow? Or we could just… stay here if you’re not up for it. Whatever you’d like.” 

“Jemma-” 

“And I don’t really have much for food, kind of an alcohol and hot sauce kind of girl, but we could pick up some things tomorrow if that’s alright-” 

Fitz made a decision. He set his mug of tea down on the table and gently took hers out of her hands, letting her keep talking while he did it. Once her hands were free - it wouldn’t do to have hot tea spilled down his front - he gently stroked his thumbs along her cheekbones and cupped her face with his hands. For some reason, this made her stop talking and blink at him like a deer caught in a spotlight. Fitz paused on his descent to her lips to study her eyes for a moment, unsure what exactly he was looking for. Her gaze darted down to his lips and back up, and the decision was made for him. He pressed his lips to hers, gently at first, and then with a bit more force as he licked at her lower lip. She mewled into his mouth and he reacted, pressing her back so her hips hit the table and he could step into her space, her body moulding a warm line along his. His hands left her face to go roaming down her back and her fingers gently traced his jaw. When he pulled back her pupils were wide and her breathing was a little ragged, but he assumed his was no better. 

“You were saying?” He asked. She poked him in the shoulder. 

“Cheeky.” Her eyes darkened suddenly and she glanced up at him from beneath her lashes. He suddenly had a harder time breathing. “I was saying that you haven’t gotten the full tour.” 

He ducked his head so he could kiss her again. This time her mouth met his halfway and she opened to him just as quickly. 

“Oh really?” He asked, kissing a line down the side of her jaw. 

“Mm. You haven’t seen the bedroom.” She looked up at him like she was half afraid he was going to reject her clear inference and half trying her best to stay as nonchalant as possible. Fitz, for his part, had given up nonchalance a while ago. He sucked in a shaky breath and knew that he would never say no to her. Not when she was so close, and looking at him like that. 

“I see. Incomplete data set, is that it?” He asked. She nodded, biting on a little grin. “Best lead the way then.” So she did.


	20. Fitz and Simmons, In Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lemony lemons. Lemony lemony lemons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SMUUUUUTTT!! This chapter is 100% SkIPPABLE. You will miss no story if you go past it, so if you don't like smut just wait until December 22 for the next chapter. 
> 
> You've been warned. 
> 
> Also, I want to point out that my phone (the overwhelming majority of this story has been written in Google Docs on my iPhone) reaaaally dislikes sexy language. I had to go through and fix so many autocorrects for this chapter. It was kind of awesome.

Jemma had never guessed that she could be so forward. After all, she had just invited a man into her bedroom and they hadn't even had a real date. Her mother would die of shock if she knew. Unfortunately Jemma couldn't really bring herself to care, given that it was Fitz she had pushed against the door as soon as he had cleared the threshold and it was Fitz’s fingers tracing circles on the skin at her hips now. All she could think was how long she'd waited for this and how much she wanted to be right where she was. 

Fitz’s hands slid up her back until he touched her bra strap and his fingers twitched, causing Jemma to smile into his mouth. She leaned back far enough to pull her shirt over her head, smiling wider at the awed expression on his face. She set her fingers to work on the buttons of his shirt, encouraging him to reach for her again. 

“Jemma…” the sound of her name moaning off his lips spurred her on. She caught his mouth again with an open-mouthed, heated kiss and finished pulling his buttons open so she could run her hands over his smooth skin. He was still thin - too thin - but he was a heck of a lot less emaciated than when he arrived. She figured a good few weeks of fish and chips and some strenuous… Lab work… would put him back to rights in - and that was his lips nipping gently at her neck and she certainly shouldn't be thinking about his medical needs right now should she? She whined when he sucked her pulse point and he redoubled his efforts, his hands tucking her hips closer to his. 

Jemma pushed the shirt off Fitz’s shoulders and he loosened his grip long enough to let it fall to the floor. When his hands came back they went to her bra, deftly unsnapping it and slipping the straps off her. She let it fall, and felt Fitz still against her. She pulled back enough that she could see his face. His gaze raked up and down her body and she shivered under his look. He swept his hands up her ribs and just grazed the edges of her breasts with his thumbs, making her shiver for a whole other reason. 

“Bloody hell, Jem, you're gorgeous. Even better than I imag-” his mouth snapped shut and he reddened from forehead to neck. Jemma put her hands on her hips. 

“Than you what?” She asked. She knew exactly what he was about to say, but his words had heat pooling in her stomach and she desperately wanted him to say it. He eyed her warily. 

“You're going to make me say it, aren't you?” He asked. She ducked her head and blinked at him from under her thick lashes. 

“Than I imagined,” he said, hand rubbing over the back of his neck like it did every time he was embarrassed. Jemma could see why that might be embarrassing but for her part it suffused her with warmth. She beamed at him. 

“Did you… Think about me a lot while you were over there?” She asked, her voice lowering into a husky register she wasn't at all familiar with. Fitz’s eyes widened and he searched her face for a second, just enough time for her to worry that she'd gone the wrong route. Then he cleared his throat.

“All the bloody time,” he said. 

“And you pictured me…” She gestured to her half naked body. 

“Yes.” He pulled her closer and dipped his head to nip her collarbone. She ran her hands over his back and sighed at the feeling of his skin on hers. 

“Did you think about us, like this?” Her voice had gone from husky to downright breathy. Fitz laid a trail of open-mouthed kisses down her collarbones and chest until his breath was hot on her nipples. Jemma was finding it difficult to string thoughts together, but she was on a mission here. 

“Mhm,” Fitz hummed. He licked one of her nipples and she jerked like she'd been electrified. 

“Oh! And - uh - what did you picture?” She asked. Part of her was curious, and the rest of her thought it was incredible that he had been thinking about her at all. Either way she wanted to know. Fitz, too lost in lust to be bashful anymore, sucked her nipple between his lips and pulled it taut with a gentle tug. Jemma’s knees wobbled and his arms tightened around her back to keep her up. He released her aching nipple so he could answer her and she had the fleeting thought that the answer wasn't worth it if he had to stop what he was doing. 

“Well, these off, for starters,” he said, unsnapping the closure on her pencil skirt and tugging it - and her panties along with it - down her legs. She stepped out of them with what she hoped was confidence but probably looked a bit more like shaky nerves, leaving her in her lace topped stockings, the new ones with the elastic tops that she definitely hadn't bought on the off chance that this evening might happen as planned… No, definitely not for that. She was glad she did though, when Fitz ran his fingers over the edges of the lace.

“These can stay on though.” His accent had thickened and she shivered to hear it. He glanced down at her with a flash of uncertainty. “If you want.” 

She nodded enthusiastically and dragged his head back so she could kiss him again and distract him while her hands wandered down to his trousers. She had them unbuttoned in a flash, and she slipped her hand past his waistbands until her fingers could wrap around his hard, silky smooth cock. She wasn't sure who's moan was louder. Fitz rested his forehead in the crook of her neck while she stroked his cock. It only took about three pumps before his hips were twitching and he couldn't take it. He lifted her hands off him and walked her carefully backwards to her bed - which was already her favorite part of her apartment and whose standing was only set to improve if the rest of the evening was any indication - until she had to sit or fall over. She lay back on the bed and he stared down at her, lit by the warm glow of streetlights through the window. She nearly squirmed under his gaze. She was sure no one else had ever looked at her like that before. He moved as if to join her and she held up a hand to stop him. 

“Trousers first,” she said. He eagerly shucked his pants and unders, then started again for the bed. This time he stopped himself before he got there. 

“Socks,” he explained as he dragged them off his feet, “can't be the bloody naked man in socks. That's the worst version of the naked man.” Jemma giggled, and giggled louder when he ran a finger along her stocking clad foot. He looked like he was tucking away the knowledge that her feet were ticklish, but then he was on her bed with her and his arm had snaked under her shoulders so he could haul her close to him again. His mouth descended on hers and she lost the ability to think abruptly. 

She chased him when he started to move down her body, intent on claiming more of his kisses, but he was having none of it. He smirked up at her and tugged her nipple between his teeth, effectively rendering her speechless. He laved her sensitive skin with his tongue as his fingers slimmed down her stomach to her thighs. He traced circles on the insides of her thighs until she whined and squirmed under him, about ready to flip him and take over. Then his fingers slid between her slick folds and she arched her back, moaning encouragement as he explored. 

“Jem, I-” she cut him off with an abrupt gasp as his thumb slid over her very sensitive clit. Jemma was no stranger to pleasure, she was a doctor after all and she knew exactly how her body worked, but Fitz was pushing all her buttons seemingly by accident. She desperately needed to know if he could do the same when he was inside her. She wound her fingers through his hair and pulled him gently upwards, guiding him until he was between her hips and she could feel his hard cock against her. 

“Fitz, please-” that wasn't begging. She didn't beg. It might have sounded an awful lot like it though. Fitz groaned again, looking like every part of this was nearly overwhelming, and captured her mouth with his. 

“Please what?” He asked. She dimly remembered that he was supposed to be describing what he had pictured doing to her, not the other way around, but the head of his cock was pressed against her entrance and all she needed was to twitch - his hands tightened on her hips and held her in place. It occurred to her that he wanted to hear her say it as badly as she had wanted him to say it. Affirmation of what she wanted. 

“I need you in me, now,” she whispered. His hips twitched of their own accord but still he held back.

“Condom?” He asked. She wrinkled her nose. 

“Don't need one. IUD.” 

He looked confused, which she supposed was logical, so she explained. “Intra-uterine device. Developed a few years ago by Hall and Stone after the German-” she stopped, taking in the way he was staring at her like she'd sprouted another head. “You don't care. I don't care. We're fine, it's safe.” She recognized that she may have dampened the mood slightly so she laid a trail of kisses down his jaw and reached between them to grasp his cock. She lined him up wit her entrance as he paused over her, his whole body shaking very slightly with want. 

“Are you…” he trailed off. 

“Sure?” She caught his lips and kissed them softly, sweetly. “Yes.” 

And then he was pushing into her and everything was right in her world. He groaned at the contact and she breathed his name, her nails skating over his back. Her world faded to a blur of him: his skin under her questing fingertips, his hips pistoning into hers, his name falling carelessly from her throat, his eyes catching hers as holding them. They canted against each other, perfectly in synch and helping each other higher. When her body began to quiver under his Fitz took note and shifted slightly so he could reach between them to run his thumb in circles over her clit. Her eyes popped wide open at that as she gasped, her hips bucking out of their quick rhythm. Fitz kept up his steady pace, his eyes never leaving her face as he watched her come apart under him. When her body shook and she gasped out his name through the waves of pleasure cascading over her, Fitz thrust into her as far as he could and stilled, his eyes screwed shut. How he managed to have the presence of thought to collapse to the side was beyond her current state of tingly joy. 

“Christ Jemma, that was…” He shook his head like he couldn't find the words and let his hand drift down her over sensitive skin. 

“Mhm,” she agreed, picking his palm up off her hip and kissing it. They lay like that for a long few minutes, staring at each other in happy sated bliss, until the sweat on her body began to cool and she shivered. 

“Cold?” He mumbled, eyes half closed. 

“Contemplating cleaning up and going to sleep,” she said. He hummed like that was a good idea but he didn't move. Jemma slowly gathered the strength to stand up, though she was a bit wobbly when she did. She took a quick glance around the apartment and winced at the trail of clothes into her bedroom, the tea undoubtedly gone cold on her little table. She smiled to herself. She wouldn't change a thing. She wandered into the bathroom and turned the water on, plugging her claw foot tub once it was hot. 

Her bathroom, like the rest of her home, was tiny, completely dominated by the tub. She had had a shower head and curtain installed when she realized that filling the tub in the morning before work was not realistic, but that bathtub was half the reason she'd rented this apartment in the first place. Once the water was going she added a bit of bubbles stripped off her stockings and then climbed into the tub, relaxing as the hot water rose up her skin. As she'd expected, Fitz appeared a moment later, rumpled and sleepy and gorgeous. 

“Room for two?” He asked somewhat hesitantly, and the fact that he could still be slightly nervous after what they'd just done was so endearing she couldn't help but smile at him. 

“Hopefully,” she teased. She scooted forward and he got the hint, as she'd known he would. He climbed in behind her, legs on either side of her body, and she leaned back against his chest. He laid a kiss on her bare shoulder, where the edge of scar tissue from the bomb faded into the clear skin of her front. She tensed. She had forgotten, in all the excitement, that the skin of her back was covered in rippling burn marks. He hadn't been able to see them while she was lying down and he was over her but now, in the light of the bathroom, he could. He ghosted his fingertips along the wavy edge of the scars at her shoulders, down to the thinner, shinier ones on the backs of her arms. Doctor Hollandy, the SSR’s trauma specialist, was confident than those ones at least would fade.

Jemma swallowed the lump of fear in her throat. What if… What if he couldn't look at her the same way? Her entire back was scarred, the backs of her legs, her arms… maybe she should have warned him? Or shown him? Spared herself the agony of him being unable to handle it. She shivered suddenly - he was laying a row of soft, chaste kisses along the top of her shoulder, right where the scars stopped. 

“Oh Jemma,” he murmured, sounding so sad for her. She craned her neck so she could see him, search his face for any sign of disgust. He just looked sad. 

“You don't… They're awful, I know,” she said, “I'd understand if you didn't…” the lump in her throat was back and she couldn't finish saying that she'd understand if he didn't want to be with her. Fitz looked surprised and then his eyebrows lowered in determination and a bit of anger.

“Don't be ridiculous,” he said shortly. She stared at him for a second and then barked a laugh. For a second he had sounded exactly as she remembered him: waspish and peeved as they bickered over one aspect of a project or another. Only Fitz could dismiss her fears so succinctly. He didn't bother to elaborate on her ridiculousness though so she leaned back against him and tucked his arms tighter around her. 

“I love you,” she declared softly. His arms jerked around her. She supposed she hadn't said it to him yet, not really. She closed her eyes, trying to remember if she had ever felt more content than she did now in his arms. 

“Love you too,” he whispered, and there, now she felt more content.


	21. The Starks of New York

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where in the world are Mack and Hunter? And what's that Stark up to?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright folks, now we begin our climb towards the top of the hill, towards the shining light that is the birth of SHIELD as we know it! I haven't quite finished writing this fic, but we're looking at about 30-32 chapters total, and so it's time to start wrapping up the loose ends, bringing everything together for our big finale! 
> 
> Enjoy!

“So Agent Sitwell is in charge of the science department and he's requisitioned everything on my list, so I think we've got a pretty good setup. He put you in my lab since we said we wanted to work together, I hope that's alright,” she was rambling, she knew it. Fitz looked hopelessly overwhelmed standing in the middle of her - their - lab and staring at all the equipment that had been brought in. She wanted to go over to him and kiss him until he looked like himself again, but they had agreed to be strictly professional at work. 

“Fitz?” 

He jumped. “Hm? Sorry Jem - Simmons, sorry - it's just a bit… Much. I haven't had this kind of equipment since uni, and even then…” 

“It's good though, isn't it?” She asked. She desperately wanted him to be happy here - with her. 

He nodded slowly. “Yeah, yeah I think so.” He cringed at her relieved smile. “Ah Christ I'm sorry I'm not better at this-” 

At that she did stride over to him. She stopped a respectable distance away, but close enough that he couldn't look around her. “Leo Fitz, you look at me,” she ordered. “Don't you apologize for not being better yet. You're just fine the way you are,” she said. He rubbed at his neck, a clear sign of his nerves, but he nodded at her and she took that as a win. 

“Anyways,” Jemma said brightly, stepping away from him before the sight of him in his new clothes and his sheer proximity forced her to kiss him, “I got all the things we'll need to work on the radio. Sitwell approved it as our first joint project, though it has much more to do with you I suppose.” Fitz brightened considerably at that and beelined for their shared workbench. 

“Brilliant,” he muttered, shaking out bags of electrical components and rummaging through drawers. She had had the techs set up his space to mirror hers but with the equipment he'd need - soldering irons, nuts and bolts drawers, an oscilloscope, and drafting table among other things. He made pleased little noises as he discovered all the things she and Sitwell, who was understandably excited to have appropriated a highly skilled engineer with actual field experience, had requisitioned for him. 

“So if the radio is largely me what’re you doing today?” He asked, and Jemma experienced in a thrill at the idea that this could be their normal. After everything else, that would be nice. 

“Oh I've got some samples of the serum you took to analyze, should keep me busy for a while,” she said lightly, a second before her brain kicked in to remind her that Fitz didn't know the serum was alien and certainly didn't know it was still in his blood. Luckily, he was so preoccupied with his new workspace that he didn't seem to register what she had said, only humming in acknowledgement and continuing his perusal of his equipment. 

“Hey, do we have any labels?” He asked a moment later and she grinned. 

“Of course,” she said, and went to get them. When she came back Fitz was leaning on his workbench and frowning. Jemma set the labels down on his workbench and waited. She should have known it wouldn’t slip by him so easily. 

“So what’ve you found about the serum?” He asked, his pose belying his casual tone. 

“Not much,” she replied in the same tone, “it’s quite different than we expected. Nothing like the serum they used to make Captain Rogers.” 

His eyes lit up a bit at that. “Did you ever get to study that?” 

“No, it was all destroyed during the attack on the lab. But the German serum is trying to replicated it. They haven’t quite got it right yet.” She hoped maybe he’d leave it at that. 

“I’d say,” he snorted. His expression shifted to searching. “You’d tell me if there was anything… wrong with me, right? Because of it?” 

Jemma bit her lip. She should tell him. She should tell him that the serum contained traces of matter that didn’t match anything anyone had ever seen before. She should tell him that those traces had not left his bloodwork in the month that he’d been home, nor had they disappeared from any of the other men that had been experimented on. The only reason they’d allowed the others to go home was because they had no idea how long it would take for effects of the serum to make themselves known. Jemma watched the way the fear flickered across Fitz’s face and knew she should tell him. 

“Fitz-” 

“Agent Simmons?” She spun faster than she had thought she was capable to see Peggy Carter standing in the doorway to their lab. Alarm bells rang out in Jemma’s head. Peggy looked distraught, her lips tucked together in a thin line and her hands on the doorframe clenched so tight her knuckles were white. 

“Yes?” She asked. 

“I need you to come with me, please,” Peggy said, her tone imploring. Jemma glanced between Peggy and Fitz and back again, unsure what to do. She knew if she left now she would lose her nerve to tell Fitz about the serum, but that look on Peggy’s face… she had only ever seen it once before, when Steve Rogers’ plane went down over the Arctic. 

“Of course,” she said, and she shot a pleading look at Fitz as she left, trying to tell him with that look that she would be back and they would talk and everything would be okay. He frowned at her like he had something to say, but she was already on her way out of the lab. 

Peggy’s entire body was stiff as they walked to the elevator. Jemma didn’t bother to ask her what was wrong; Peggy would tell her when she was ready and only then. Jemma had only met one other person who played things as close to the chest as Peggy Carter: Agent Melinda May, and that was because as far as Jemma could tell May had literally no emotions. Though her partner Phil Coulson made up for that by being as genial and nice as May was silent. 

Peggy led Jemma into the elevator and up to the highest level of the SSR building, then up the stairs to the roof. Jemma wasn’t surprised to see Bobbi waiting for them, arms crossed like she knew something was wrong and she heartily disapproved. Once the three women were together in a corner of the roof, Jemma turned to Peggy and raised her eyebrows. 

“Well?” She asked. 

Peggy took a deep breath. Jemma was startled to note that her usually flawless appearance - dark ringlets, red lipstick, razor-sharp cat’s eye eyeliner - was very slightly mussed. She had been rubbing her face, which she only did in the worst of circumstances. “It’s Howard,” Peggy said, “the SSR has labelled him a fugitive.” 

Bobbi’s eyebrows shot up and Jemma gasped. She had worked with Howard for months overseas, they were friends. He had even made a pass or two at her. 

“What are they saying he did?” Bobbi asked calmly. 

“They say he sold weapons to the Russians, including nitramene,” Peggy said. Jemma gasped. Nitramene was very explosive and even in small quantities could be very dangerous. If the Russians had hold of it… 

“Did he?” Bobbi asked. The others glared at her and she shrugged. “Obvious questions first.” 

“He says he didn't. I spoke to him last night, he wanted to explain before the press gets wind of his questioning before the Senate committee. I believe him. Howard is a lot of things, but he's not a traitor,” Peggy said. 

Jemma agreed. She'd worked for Howard for months in France as she would never believe he could betray his country. Howard believed in protecting people, even if he liked to make money doing it. 

“So what's the plan?” Bobbi, always one for action, asked. 

“We find the rest of Howard's inventions and prove his innocence,” Peggy said. 

“Where do we start?” Jemma asked. 

Peggy raised her eyebrows at her. “We don't start anywhere,” she said gently, “you need to stay in the lab and figure out the super soldier serum. We've evidence that Hydra is still operational, which means they're probably still testing that formula. We need you to sort it out before they turn any more people into blue monsters.” 

Jemma started to protest but Peggy cut her off. “I know he's not a monster anymore darling.” 

“Well if you don't want my help why am I up here?” Jemma asked somewhat petulantly. 

Peggy took her hand and squeezed it. “Because you two are the only people I trust in this bloody operation, plus Phil and Melinda, but they're on assignment. If I'm going to help Howard I'm going to need you,” she said. Jemma softened immediately. She knew what Peggy was implying when she said she couldn't trust anyone else here; since the war ended the SSR seemed to expect that it's female agents, recruited when the group was in dire need, would return to being demure secretaries and decorative women. Unfortunately they'd done themselves the favor of hiring strong women like Peggy and they were none of them the sort to sit quietly and answer phones. Since the war field agents like Peggy and Bobbi had become increasingly frustrated by the SSR, hence the ladies’ admittedly somewhat drunken speculation about starting their own defense organization. That was besides the point though. Regardless of any SSR internal conflict, to the agents who’d been through the war with him Howard was one of theirs, and Jemma knew Peggy wouldn't stop until she'd gotten to the bottom of the situation. 

“Alright, well let me know as soon as I can help,” Jemma said. Peggy nodded, and the ladies headed back downstairs. 

*

Back in the lab, Fitz watched Jemma and Peggy leave with not a little bit of frustration at Peggy's poor timing. He was sure Jemma had been just about to tell him something important, perhaps even the thing that had been making her so nervous the last few weeks. Fitz hadn't forgotten that she had spent the first half of his time in New York avoiding him, and he hadn't come across a satisfactory reason why yet. 

However, her sudden absence did give him an opportunity he had been waiting for. Once the elevator doors had closed on Jemma and Peggy he went for the stairs, ascending quickly to the bullpen where Trip and Henry should be getting their orientation walk through. He saw the two of them with Agent Sousa in the middle of the bullpen, being shown their respective desks. Trip spotted him over Sousa’s shoulder, and when the Agent wasn't looking he nudged Henry. Without needing to speak of it, Henry stepped slightly in front of Trip and began to pepper Sousa with questions. Trip slipped away and came over to Fitz, grinning widely all the way. 

“Haven't lost our touch, have we?” Trip asked when he was close enough. Fitz couldn't help but smile back, as relieved as Trip that the camaraderie they had developed in that Hydra prison was still alive and well. 

“All good?” Fitz asked, repeating the phrase he used to ask when Trip would come back from a particularly gruelling session with Hydra. 

“Yeah, all good. You don't look like you're all good though,” his friend observed. 

“Yeah, I’ve a favor to ask,” Fitz said. 

“Mack and Hunter and the others?” Trip grinned at Fitz’s surprise. “Yeah, I have a plan for that.” 

Fitz couldn’t help but feel relieved. He had known logically that Trip would help him, no questions asked, but it should have occurred to him that Trip would have just as much invested in finding out what happened to their unit as he did. 

“Good. What’s the plan?” He asked. 

Trip shook his head. “Not here. How about beers after work? Henry and I found this little place a few blocks away-” Agent Sousa called Trip’s name and cut him off. Trip waved at him and then looked back at Fitz. 

“Say, 6:00? Meantime, can you get to the military archives in Brooklyn? They might have something,” Trip said. Sousa called again and Trip waved at him with a bit more irritation. 

“Will do,” Fitz said, though he wasn’t sure exactly how he was going to accomplish what his friend was asking of him. He had never had to get around New York by himself, and he didn’t really have any money yet… Trip was making his way back to Agent Sousa though and Fitz knew he would just have to figure it out. After all, he had gotten through three countries in the middle of a war, how hard could Brooklyn be to navigate? He headed back downstairs to the lab, relieved that Jemma still wasn’t back from wherever Peggy had taken her. He found some paper and wrote a quick note, explaining that he had to go out for some parts and that he would be back soon, and then he was off.


	22. October in Brooklyn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We finally have some action from the dormant alien serum!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well folks, Happy Christmas Eve! I hope you're all having wonderful holidays! Just an FYI, I will probably not be updating on December 26th as planned since that day I will be driving for about 9 hours to get to my parents' place in the North. I will be back on December 28th with your next installment! 
> 
> Have Happy Holidays! 
> 
> \- AO

As it turned out, Brooklyn was a bit more difficult to get to than Fitz could have imagined. He had to take public transit, since he didn’t have enough money to take a cab from Manhattan out to Brooklyn, and so then he had to navigate public transit. It was like they had printed the maps of the transit system in a different bloody language, he thought, standing at the bus stop on Flatbush Avenue. It had taken him three tries to get on the right train and then because he’d taken so long on the trains he had missed his bus at the other end. It had been a long wait in the chill October air, but eventually he’d made it here. According to his map, he should be only a couple blocks’ walk from the old Army recruitment station, which had been turned into an archive station after the war. Fitz tucked his map into his pocket and headed off down the street, only have to turn around once when he realized he was going the wrong way. 

The Army recruitment station looked a bit different from the station he’d been conscripted at only a couple short years ago, but it had all the hallmarks of a military operation. Two old propaganda posters were tacked to the windows, the famous Uncle Sams saying they wanted him. Fitz snorted. They’d already had him, and chewed him up and spit him out. Regardless, he was here on business and so in he went. 

As soon as Fitz walked into the office he wished he had his military uniform on. Then he remembered that he didn’t actually have a dress uniform anymore, and wondered if it would be possible to get one. He supposed he didn’t really need one anymore, but it would be sort of… nice. He sighed and made his way up to the front desk, where a bored receptionist was chewing gum and reading a fashion magazine. 

“Hullo,” Fitz started, somewhat nervously. The lady looked up, over, and through him. Now Fitz really wished he had his uniform. 

“What can I do for you, soldier?” She asked. 

“How did you - nevermind. I’m looking for information on a joint British and American operation in the Ardennes in January 1945,” he said. 

“Which unit?” She blew a bubble in her gum. 

“184 Field Company, Royal Engineer Corps. We were with the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, 1st British Army.” 

She snorted. “This is an American station, honey. We don’t keep British records.” 

Fitz fought down his growing ire at her apathy. “It was a joint operation. We were with the 82nd Airborne, 12th Army group, 9th US Army, and a few others. We were hit by the Nazis on January 15th outside of Liege. Some Americans were taken prisoner. You don’t have any records of it?” 

The receptionist heaved a sigh and went into the back of the station through a little swinging door. She came out about five minutes later, just as Fitz was starting to think she had abandoned him completely, and she was carrying a large file box. She dropped it on her desk. 

“These are all the records of the 9th US Army that pertain to January 15th. I have boxes like this for every day of January, and more boxes for every other American unit that was there. Ain’t no Brits in there though. Where would you like to start?” 

Fitz stared at her, mouth agape. “Alright, fine,” he said, completely peeved now, “Where should I go to get British records?” 

The lady’s face softened considerably and she reached over the counter to put a manicured hand on Fitz’s arm. “Oh don’t be mad hon, I didn’t mean to upset you. You can check with the British Embassy up in Manhattan, they might be able to put you in touch with someone who can help. You lookin’ for someone in particular?” She asked, batting her eyelashes at him. 

Fitz shoved his hands in the pockets of his new brown leather jacket, which still felt quite odd on him. He hadn’t gotten used to his new wardrobe yet - or his new city, his new life. He felt like he had been pulled out of his body and plopped down in New York, expected to know exactly what to do. 

“Yeah,” he said, “Couple old friends of mine.” And himself, he wanted to add. 

The lady smiled sympathetically. “We get a lot of folks like you in here lookin’ for someone. Sorry honey, hope you find ‘em.” 

Fitz nodded and headed for the door. The receptionist’s voice stopped him before he got all the way out of the station. 

“By the way,” she said, “You still walk like a soldier. That’s how I knew.” 

*

There was probably something to the lady’s assertion that Fitz still looked like a soldier he thought some hours later when he walked into the bar to meet Trip. Trip - and unsurprisingly, Henry - were sitting at the bar, backs straight, everything about them screaming “soldier.” Fitz made his way over to them and Trip slid him a beer without having to ask. 

“How’d it go?” Henry asked. 

Fitz popped the top of his beer and took a gulp before he answered his hulking American friend. “It didn’t. They suggested the British embassy on East 52nd, but that’s about it.” 

Trip put a bracing hand on Fitz’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, we’ll find them eventually,” he said, “and now that we’re all officially Agents of the SSR, it shouldn’t be too hard, right?” 

“Mhm,” Henry hummed, ‘Hell of a lot easier than taking that serum, eh?” 

The guys chuckled and Fitz finally lost that sensation he had experience in Brooklyn earlier of being out of his skin. They had both been there. They had gone through the same thing he had. They knew, and that was incredibly comforting. He drained his beer and flagged the bartender for another one. 

“So, how was work?” He asked with a grin when both men groaned. 

By the time the guys left the bar a couple hours later they were all well and truly drunk, like they hadn’t been since before they were captured. Hell, since they hadn’t been since that awful shore leave in Britain before they deployed. Fitz mentioned that to Trip as they stumbled down the street, and he roared with laughter. 

“Do you remember any of that night?” He asked. Fitz didn’t, and said so. They were stumbling towards Jemma’s apartment, since the guys were staying on the base until they could find somewhere to live and no one thought it was a good idea to stumble in there drunk. He was pretty sure he could deposit them on Jemma’s living room floor without her minding too much - Jemma. Minding. Oh shit. 

“What’s wrong?” Trip slurred. 

“I forgot to tell Jemma we were goin’ for drinks. She’s gonna kill me,” he said. Henry had to stop due to being doubled over with laughter. 

“You’re so gone, man,” he gasped when he could breathe again. 

“Oh shut up,” Fitz said. He hauled Trip’s arm over his shoulder and the three of them set off again. They were only a block or so from Jemma’s apartment, he was pretty sure, and he was immensely relieved when they stumbled into view of the old brick building. They were coming at it from a different angle than he was used to, and at the moment they were passing in front of a little row of shops. Jemma hadn’t taken him to them before, but Fitz noted in passing that they looked kind of interesting. One claimed to be “Manhattan’s Finest Used Components Dealer” and its window was full of mostly military equipment. It piqued his interest, and Fitz resolved to come back there if he remembered it in the morning. 

As they walked past the shop, all three men stopped. Fitz looked around in confusion. There was a whining sound in his ears, like a very high pitched whistle. 

“D’you hear that?” He asked the others. They were both looking around like they were trying to find the source of the noise. 

“Sounds like…” Trip trailed off, brow furrowed. The buzz intensified and Fitz was thrown back in time to the moment he had heard the whining of the bomb that blew Jemma up in Belgium. He looked upwards, fully expecting to see the lights of the Luftwaffe overhead and the bright blooms of bombs dropping around him. There were only the lights of the towers of Manhattan. 

The buzz grew louder and Henry let out a choked gargle, falling to his knees. Fitz was losing the battle with Trip’s increasingly limp form and they both slid down to the ground as well. He couldn’t breathe, his breath choked off by the noise and the intense pain in his stomach. It felt like… it felt like the serum, the moment after he injected it into his body. He looked down at his hands. Sure enough, the tips of his fingers were turning blue. Fitz’s world slowed down. He took in his friends in heaps on the sidewalk, Trip’s eyes squeezed shut and his hands over his ears, Henry desperately trying to stop the flow of blood out of his nose. Trip’s fingernails were growing, black and curved in the streetlight. Henry’s normally blonde hair was turning black. Fitz knew they had to get out of there, get away from the noise. He struggled to his feet, trying vainly to haul Trip with him. 

“Get up,” he yelled. “Get up, we have to get out of here!” Henry’s eyes flicked up. They were completely black. 

“Get up!” Fitz screamed. Trip groaned but got his feet under himself. Henry crawled to the lamp post on the edge of the street and used it to haul himself up. He tottered over to Fitz and Trip and the three of them somehow managed to stumble away from the noise, in the vague direction of Jemma’s apartment. 

Fitz got them into the lobby of the apartment building and then they all collapsed. He stared at the staircase, wondering how in the hell they were going to get up there. At least in the building they couldn’t hear the noise anymore. 

“Stay here,” he said, using the wall to slowly stand. “I’m gonna get Jem. She’ll help us.” All he got in return was a groan. He staggered to the stairs. He figured out that if he used a hand on one wall and the other hand on the railing he could sort of lever himself up the stairs, and so he did, gasping for breath by the time he reached the first landing. 

The ascent up the staircase became a sort of tunnel to him, like he had always been in it and always would be. He couldn’t tell how much of that was drunkenness and how much was whatever was trying to turn his friends, but by the time he made it to Jemma’s floor he felt like he had climbed a mountain. He slid along the wall to her door and pounded weakly. 

“Jemma!” He called. “Jemma help!” A door further down the hall opened and someone yelled at him to shut up. He didn’t care. He yelled Jemma’s name again, and when the door opened he fell inside. She tried to catch him but his dead weight was too much and he slipped to the floor. 

“Fitz, what the hell -” she saw his eyes and gasped. “What happened?” 

“Trip and Henry… downstairs. Help,” he implored. She looked between him and the hallway, clearly debating helping him first or going downstairs. Fitz knew she wouldn’t leave him here like this, so he gripped the wall again and yet again hauled himself upright. His legs felt like noodles. Jemma was immediately there, supporting him as he tried to walk. 

“I’ll come with you, help,” he murmured. His entire body felt like lead. 

“No, you’ll sit down. I’ll go get them,” she ordered. She steered him into the apartment and sat him down at the kitchen table, pooling him into the chair like he was made of water. He set his forehead down on the table and when he looked up again she was back with Henry, struggling under the weight of the big American. She poured Henry onto the couch and then went back out, her lips tight with worry. 

“Henry? You okay?” Fitz called, his head still down on the table like it was stuck there. Henry just groaned, but that would have to do. The next time Fitz was able to open his eyes Trip was lying on the floor in front of the couch and Jemma was flitting back and forth between the three of them, checking pulses and making notes on a little scrap of paper. She checked each of their eyes, felt their foreheads, and picked up their hands to look at their nails. Once she was apparently satisfied, she sat down at the table across from Fitz. He had to use both hands to lift his head up off the table. 

“Fitz, what the hell happened?” She asked, her tone as irritated as he had ever heard her. Fitz haltingly explained about the noise near the little shop and she went from irritation to fear in a split second. She dodged around Trip’s prone form to her telephone and started dialing. 

“Hello, Agent Yauch? Yes, it’s Simmons. I need to order a raid on Wholesale House, an electronics dealer near my apartment. Yes, that’s the address. The shop is emitting some sort of signal that triggered the super soldier serum in Agent Fitz, Agent Hawkins, and Agent Triplett. Yes, triggered it. As in they’re experiencing all the symptoms of a fresh injection. They’re in my apartment. No, they’re all prone. No violence. Yes, thank you. Thank you,” she spoke rapid fire into the phone and Fitz heard her words as if they were travelling down a tunnel. He dimly heard her say his name and felt her fingers on his skin, but this time no amount of effort could force his eyes open.


	23. Vita-Radiation in New York

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back!! Woooo! It's been too long. So here we have it, the next chapter! Things are beginning to come to a head, and the storyline will accelerate from here on out. Hopefully I can include some more smutty goodness, if you'd like. Let me know in the comments!

Beep! Beep! Beep! Jemma groaned. She recognized the insistent beeping noise that was driving its way into her skull like a jackhammer as the sound made by the little alarm she’d purchased to time critical lab processes. She wasn’t sure when the little alarm had turned into a behemoth of roaring sound, but every time it beeped it was louder and squeakier and more awful. She got up, eyes still mostly shut, and groped around her workbench until she found it and turned it off. She yawned, but duty called and as uncomfortable as the chair she’d been sleeping in was, she couldn’t go back to it yet. She meandered over to one of her patients’ bedsides and pulled out her little notebook. It took her a full five seconds to take stock of where she was and what she was supposed to be doing, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to care. 

Her lethargy was understandable, after all, she thought as she peeled one of Henry’s eyelids back to check his pupil dilation. It had been two days since she’d called in the raid on Wholesale House and she hadn’t slept since. The agents had showed up at the shop and knocked on the door - she could see them from her window - and the resulting string of events was so similar to the war that Jemma had trouble separating the two. A gunshot had rang out and Agent Ray Krzeminski had dropped to the sidewalk, and all hell had broken loose. 

The agents had rushed into the shop with all guns blazing, and Jemma had grabbed her first aid kit, took a look around at the three men strewn about her apartment, and rushed off down the stairs. By the time she got to Ray Krzeminski’s body the gunfire had mostly stopped but it was obvious there was nothing she could do. She remembered the shouts and pleas of his fellow agents around her, but when a man was dead he was dead. She knew that all too well. Eventually someone draped their jacket over his body and called for a pick up. She had sat back against a lamp post and watched them haul several pallets of neatly stacked orange orbs out of the shop - nitramene bombs. There had been calls for her to analyze them immediately, do something! But she had just told them to take the bombs back to the SSR. When one of their vans pulled up sometime later and Doctor Hollandy popped out, she got him to go fetch Fitz and the others, loaded everyone into the back of the van, and set out. 

Two days later she had all three men in her lab, still unconscious, and three pallets of nitramene bombs in a bunker downstairs. Jemma checked Henry, then Trip, then Fitz, writing down all of their vitals on her chart. She stroked a hand over Fitz’s forehead, willing him to wake up soon, before she grabbed her alarm clock and went to the elevator. 

Down in the bunker where they were storing the radioactive nitramene bombs, nearly every member of the SSR’s science team was crammed around a scrolling printout charting the nitramene’s radiation levels. Jemma joined them, quickly scanning the data as the bouncing metal rod jotted it down. She ascertained that the nitramene wasn’t dangerous and walked up to it, much to the shock of her colleagues. 

“Relax,” she ordered, “it’s harmless. Well, unless you’ve ingested an unstable super soldier serum…” She dimly heard them chuckle behind her but she was focused on the nitramene bombs. They were little round glass shells full of the glowing orange substance, about the size of baseballs. She supposed they were supposed to be thrown, like little hand grenades.

“It’s vita radiation, isn’t it?” She asked the techs. One of them answered affirmatively. Jemma hummed, her mind working quickly. It made sense; it had taken an exorbitant amount of vita radiation to turn Steve Rogers into Captain America, and she had long suspected that it had been the missing component in Hydra’s version of the serum. Of course it wasn’t the only problem with their serum, but it was definitely the missing link. That begged a whole other set of questions though, like how she could stop if from happening any time any of the soldiers were struck by vita radiation. And why Howard had made the nitramene into handheld weapons. Massive destruction had never been his MO, even when he was working with the SSR during the war. He liked profit, sure, and war was good for business, but he hadn’t been one for weaponsmithing. These pallets of bombs were a bit condemning, really. Unless… 

Jemma turned and went for the phone set into the wall. Luckily, and for once, Peggy was at her desk when Jemma called. 

“Agent Carter,” she said, all business all the time. 

“Peggy it’s Jemma. I have some statistics on the nitramene you might like to look at,” Jemma said. She couldn’t be sure no one was listening in to their conversation. 

“Could you bring them up?” Peggy asked, clearly distracted. 

“No, best if you meet me at my lab. It’ll be easier to show you there,” Jemma said. She ripped the data off the scrolling arm and quickly folded it up, assuring her protesting colleagues she would bring it back shortly. She made her way back up to her lab, passing by her sleeping soldiers to sit at her workbench. She started scrawling calculations on the data readout, quickly adding up figures and calculating distances. By the time Peggy Carter entered her office, Jemma had her numbers nearly complete. 

“Jemma, what is it?” Peggy asked. She sounded a bit irritated, and Jemma wondered if she had interrupted the Agent in the middle of something. It didn’t matter, really. This was more important. 

“I’ve got something that could help Howard,” she said, and suddenly Peggy was paying attention. 

“What is this?” She asked, her finger tracking the dips and rises of the data line. 

“It’s the radiation readout of the nitramene. It’s emitting vita radiation, which is what triggered the super soldier serum in the boys’ blood.” She nodded at the sleeping men. “It’s what started turning them blue.” 

“Really?” Peggy asked. “I thought that had to do with the alien component of the serum Hydra made.” 

“Yes, but the vita rays triggered the alien matter to start replicating, thereby causing the physical changes. Listen, though, that’s not what’s going to help Howard. Did he mention building all these bombs when you spoke to him?” 

Peggy frowned. “No. But he said his inventions and his plans were stolen, so I was working on the assumption that whoever stole the plans built all these.” 

Jemma smiled. That was what she wanted to hear. “Perfect. Okay, vita radiation is traceable, and if Howard didn’t build these then someone else did. Howard would have made sure to build them in a secure lab with insulation to stop the vita rays from escaping and potentially harming someone, but whoever stole them…” 

“Might not have. How can we trace them?” Peggy finished her thought. She had brightened up at the prospect of tracking down whoever had taken Howard’s devices. It was the first solid lead she’d had. 

“We could build some sort of device, but that’s not really my area of expertise-”

“It is mine.” Jemma’s blood ran cold. She stood up fast, nearly knocking her chair over in her rush to get to Fitz’s bedside. He had managed to roll over onto his side so he could look at them. 

“Fitz! Are you alright? When did you wake up?” Jemma asked somewhat guiltily. She didn’t want him to have heard about the alien matter… she wasn’t ready to tell him about that yet. But she supposed if he had heard, then at least it would be out in the open. 

“A couple minutes ago. Took me a minute to get my bearings,” he said. He was still groggy but his eyes were their proper clear blue, much to Jemma’s relief. “Been awake long enough.” 

If she wasn’t sweating before she was now. Thankfully Peggy came to the rescue. “You could build a device to help me track the vita radiation, Agent Fitz?” She asked. 

“Yeah, if you don’t mind me starting tomorrow,” he joked. Peggy smiled at him. 

“Tomorrow’s just fine,” she said. She nodded at them. “I’ve got some other leads to follow up, but I think we’re on the right track now. Finally. Thank you both.” 

Jemma smiled at her until she left and then she waited for the inevitable. Fitz didn’t say anything, just sat up on his cot and swung his legs over the side. He inspected the tips of his fingers and after he was apparently satisfied with them he looked at her. She couldn’t read his expression; he didn’t look angry but he didn’t look pleased either. He looked sort of impassive actually, and that was probably more frightening than anything. 

“So… alien matter, eh?” He asked. 

Jemma paled. “You heard that?” 

“Yeah. Jem… why didn’t you tell me? I’ve got alien in my blood and it’s going to turn me blue every once in awhile, and you didn’t think I should know?” He asked. She understood the bleak expression now. He was disappointed. Somehow that was infinitely worse than anger. She put a tentative hand on his knee. 

“I… I didn’t know what to say,” she admitted. He shook her hand off. 

“How about ‘hey Fitz there’s some bloody alien stuff in your blood and it’s going to turn you bloody blue now and then’? Would have about summed it up, I think,” he said. 

“Fitz…” 

“Don’t. Don’t Fitz me. You should have told me Jemma, and you should have told them.” He pointed at the other two men lying in her lab. He wouldn’t even look at her. 

Jemma hung her head, fighting off tears. “I know,” she whispered, “but I had just gotten you back and… you’re right though. I should have told you.” She wiped a tear out of the corner of her eye before it had a chance to fall. 

After a second’s pause she heard Fitz sigh and then felt his hand on her chin, lifting her head up so she had to look at him. 

“Is there anything else?” He asked, his voice gentler now than it had been. “Anything else I should know?” 

She shook her head and he relented. “Good. Can’t handle secrets. Speaking of which, I suppose I should tell you… I’m trying to find Mack and Hunter. Don’t know what happened to them after the battle in the Ardennes, and you know I hate not knowing,” he said. Jemma put the pieces together. That’s where he’d been the day of the radiation attack. It made sense. 

“If you want,” she offered timidly, still not sure if they were okay or not, “I can help you with that. I know some people who might know what happened.” 

Fitz regarded her briefly before he nodded. His face was back to being unreadable, and Jemma had the sinking feeling that they were not okay. She didn’t know how to fix that. She didn’t know if she could.


	24. The Return of May and Coulson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well it's fairly short, but it's up! I've been so stuck on writing chapter 27, but I think I have a good plot figured out. It looks like this will be 30 chapters unless it gets away from me (again), so we're nearing the end! As sad as I will be to see this story go, I am excited to finish it. I have a couple other projects up my sleeves, so there shall be more Fitzsimmons-y goodness! 
> 
> \- AO

The following morning Jemma put a call in to an SSR outpost in France where a team of Agents were sorting through Hydra artefacts and shipping them home for the research and development team. She left a message for her contacts there, and wasn’t surprised when the return message she received nearly a day later simply read “Done here. Heading to London. Have lead on target. May.” She let Fitz know that her contacts had something for her, and was rewarded with the first real smile she’d seen from him since their falling out. It was gone just as fast as it had come, but it had come and she resolved that she would get him to smile again. 

Fitz had retreated into himself after finding out about the alien matter in his system, not that she could blame him. She wasn’t sure how she would have handled finding that out either. She couldn’t help but think that he was also still upset with her, but she hadn’t found the courage to straight out ask him yet. She kept telling herself she would… 

Trip and Henry, on the other hand, had handled it with about as much aplomb as possible. Trip had actually smiled. 

“Well,” he’d said, “It ain’t quite Captain America, is it?” And Henry had just shrugged. 

“Don’t make a difference to me, miss,” he’d told her. Fitz was the only one who seemed to be struggling with it, and he wouldn’t let her help him. He had just set about designing Peggy’s radiation detector, and they had barely spoken since. She couldn’t think of how to make it up to him, how to get him to talk to her, and so she didn’t, instead settling for worried glances across their shared lab and worried attempts to talk to him in their shared apartment. 

That was why when they returned home to the apartment a few days after she’d heard from Agent May and found Agents Phil Coulson and Melinda May in her living room she’d been quite relieved. At least she wouldn’t have to suffer through another night of silence now. Agent Coulson was drinking some of her barely-touched scotch and May was reading through Jemma’s latest filled notebook of theories and lab notes. They both looked up when she and Fitz walked in, but neither was startled. Jemma, on the other hand, was thrilled. She dropped her things and raced over, giving each of them an awkward standing-sitting hug. 

“May! Coulson! You’re alright?” she asked, surreptitiously checking them both over for injuries. They looked fine - tired, but fine. 

“We’re fine, Simmons. Calm down,” Coulson teased gently. She beamed at him. 

“Oh it’s so good to see you!” She exclaimed. “Tea? May?” Melinda May nodded and Jemma filled the pot up enough for three. Three. Fitz. She spun back towards the door, where Fitz was still standing, a bit shell shocked. 

“Oh I’m sorry, Fitz this is Agent Phil Coulson and Agent Melinda May. They were working in France and they’ve just returned. They’re the ones I told you about, the ones who can help us - you - find Mack and Hunter. And I’m babbling.” She busied herself putting the water on for tea, hoping something would come along and make this a little less awkward. 

“I know who they are,” Fitz said. He hung his jacket up and slipped his shoes off, just those little acts of coming home that made Jemma warm all over when she saw them. His eyes never left Coulson and May though. 

“How?” Jemma asked. 

“I met them in Belgium. They tried to recruit me.” 

Coulson winced. “It wasn't exactly good timing on our part. Apparently someone got the job done though, so good.” 

Fitz moved into the kitchen with Jemma and began absently passing her the tea bags. Jemma was secretly excited. Fitz had done barely more than look at her in the last couple days, so him doing anything resembling team-work was very welcome. They finished up the tea and Jemma took one to May, taking up residence in the living room with the other agents. Fitz followed at length. 

“You've found out about Mack and Hunter? My unit?” Fitz asked without preamble. Jemma couldn't fault him for being a bit blunt - if anyone from her ambulance unit were still alive she'd want to track them down too. It was exceptionally difficult to let go of people when you didn't know what happened to them. 

“Yes,” said Coulson, face serious, “but it's not all good news.” 

Fitz nodded. He was seated at the kitchen table, just out of Jemma's reach. Not that he'd let her reach him right now anyways. 

“I figured that,” he said, “I was there when we got attacked.” 

“Your friends are alive,” May said. One of the things Jemma admired most about Melinda May was that she didn't beat around the bush. If she wanted to say something, she said it, tactful or not. Fitz visibly sagged with relief. “But they were injured in the ambush. They were shipped out to London immediately. Sapper Mackenzie lost his left arm. Lieutenant Hunter took four bullets, two through his lung, but he's made a full recovery. They're both in England, though-.”

Coulson interrupted her, a small smile playing across his face “We recruited them. They’re coming to work for the SSR.” He smiled wider at the gleeful look on Fitz’s face. Jemma clapped excitedly. That would be perfect - Fitz would be so pleased. SHe shot a grateful look at Coulson, who just smiled. Knowing him as she did, Jemma was surprised he’d let May tell Fitz any of the good news. Coulson was a sucker for making people happy. 

For the first time in a few days, Fitz smiled. “Well that's great!” He said. “Not the bit about the arm or Hunter getting shot, that's kind of shite, but they're alive. Did anyone else from my unit survive? Do you know how I can contact Mack and Hunter? Do they know me an’ Trip are alive? When are they coming to New York?” 

“May has all the information you're looking for. She'll get it for you,” Coulson said even as May went to her jacket hanging in Jemma’s entryway and began fishing around in her pockets, “in the meantime I need to be brought to speed on the Stark situation.” He looked at Jemma.

“Why aren't you asking Peggy?” Jemma asked. Undeniably Peggy knew more about the Stark situation than she did. 

“Because Peggy is very biased when it comes to Howard Stark. She doesn't want to believe he could have done any of this. But you've worked with him. You know what he's capable of and how his mind works. So I'm asking you: did Howard sell his inventions to the Russians?” 

So Jemma and Coulson - and eventually May after she finished with Fitz - talked through the entire Stark problem and their options for dealing with it. By the end, Coulson was skeptical that Howard had betrayed his country, and he and May were willing to help. By that point though Jemma had become a chain yawner and Fitz’s head was resting in one hand. Even Coulson was fighting off drooping eyelids. Jemma offered her friends the couch, as it wouldn't be the first time the busy field agents had had to sleep at her place, but they insisted they needed to go home. Jemma hugged them both as they went to leave and made them promise to see her before they were deployed again, as they inevitably would be. Fitz shook May’s and then Coulson’s hands and thanked them profusely for helping him find his friends, and then suddenly the two of them were alone in the apartment again. Jemma turned to Fitz, hoping the excitement over his unit would be enough to keep him from closing down on her again. 

“That's good, about Mack and Hunter, isn't it?” She said brightly. She busied herself collecting tea cups and stacking them in the sink. 

“Yeah,” Fitz sighed, “that's great.” He laughed. Jemma smiled at his obvious joy. She took a couple steps towards him and tentatively put a hand on his. 

“I'm glad they're alright. It must be a weight off your mind, is it?” She asked. Fitz picked up her hand and kissed her knuckles. Jemma’s breath collapsed out of her and she waited, breathless and hopeful, as he used her captured hand to draw her in closer. He set her hand on his shoulder and wrapped an arm around her waist. 

“Yeah. Jemma… Thank you,” he said, drawing her in flush to his body. He kissed her gently. “And I'm sorry.” 

She shook her head, leaning up to kiss him again. “I should've told you. You've nothing to be sorry for.” 

He hummed softly but she kissed him again to forestall any argument. When he began walking her backwards towards their room she knew they were going to be okay. 

*

Jemma’s apartment didn’t have a terrace or a balcony or even a sliding door that she could stand in front of to view the city, but it did have a nice picture window and that was where she found herself at well past midnight, wrapped in her dressing gown. She stared out at the city, her lips pursed and her brow furrowed while behind her Fitz lay sprawled on their bed, sheets barely covering his lower half. She glanced at him fondly, but the worry that was keeping her up wouldn’t pass. She felt like events were building and she was powerless to stop them. This business with Howard would come to a head soon, she was sure, and she wasn’t sure how it would end. Jemma disliked things she couldn’t control, and this was a very large variable. 

She bit her lip and sighed. There on the street below her was the little shop where they’d found the nitramene. She couldn’t help but think that it being so close to her house was not an accident. After all, how many people in the world had that alien super soldier serum running through their veins? And for it to be so fortuitously located to affect one of them, well that was a hell of a coincidence in her opinion. 

She nearly jumped out of her skin when a hand slid along her shoulder. She hadn’t heard him get up. Jemma turned slightly and tried to smile at Fitz, whose own face was scrunched up in worry. His worry, she knew, was for her. 

“You okay?” He asked, sleep making his Scottish brogue even thicker than usual. 

“Yeah, couldn’t sleep,” she said. He curled her into his arms and set his chin on her shoulder. 

“Worrying?” 

She hummed an affirmative but she let him draw her gently back to bed. He divested her of her dressing gown and laid her down, pulling the blankets up around both of them. Jemma wiggled so her head was on Fitz’s shoulder and he wrapped his arms around her. 

“It’ll be okay,” he said. 

Jemma snorted at him. “You can’t say that. Howard… can be tricky. And the SSR… how can you say it’ll be okay?” 

“Because I’ll be right here with you, the whole time. After everything else, sorting out Howard Stark will be a breeze Jem. Promise.” He was so certain that she couldn’t help but hope he was right. She sighed and turned her face into his chest. She closed her eyes and tried to focus on Fitz’s breathing, Fitz’s warmth around her, Fitz’s smell. He smelled like home, she realized. Maybe he was right.


	25. Attack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D 
> 
> Enjoy.

“Jemma, shoot me!” Fitz screamed it at her, his clawed fingers digging furrows into the hardwood floor of the SSR main office. He was on his stomach behind an overturned desk, and she was crouched behind the desk opposite. The blue was crawling up his exposed arms and creeping down from his hairline. Black was pooling into his eyes like someone was pouring ink into them. Jemma held a gun in her hands, but it wasn’t pointing at anything. Not at the people shooting at them with high powered rifles from the building across the street, and certainly not at Fitz. Though if the blue managed to completely claim him… 

“Shoot me!” Fitz urged again. All around the office agents were returning fire, but none of them had sniper rifles and their pistols were largely ineffective. Peggy was calmly crawling between desks in the direction of Chief Dooley’s office, where the chief was lying partially in view. Jemma could tell from here that he was dead, his eyes wide and glassy and blood puddling out around his head. 

Fitz screamed again, but this time it sounded an awful lot like a roar. His eyes, almost completely black now, pleaded with her. 

“I - I can’t. I can’t,” she apologized. Fitz roared and clawed himself forward. His face was completely alien to her now - there was nothing of her Fitz left on him, and he was fast approaching her frozen form. 

“Simmons!” A telephone crashed into the back of Fitz’s head, wielded by the even-more-dour-than-usual Melinda May. Fitz dropped like a rock. 

“You okay?” May asked. Fitz stirred, his alien biology much stronger than a human’s, and May slammed the phone into his head again. This time he stayed down. 

“I… I couldn’t shoot him,” Jemma said, though why she sounded like she was apologizing she wasn’t sure. Not being willing to shoot her lover wasn’t awful, was it? She giggled. 

“She’s in shock,” May called. Coulson’s head appeared beside May’s shoulder and Jemma grinned at the sight. 

“We have to get them out of here. Carter!” Coulson turned and bellowed. Peggy was crouched beside Chief Dooley, confirming what Jemma already knew. The Chief was dead. 

“The vans! We have to get out of here!” Coulson called. Peggy nodded and dove for the phone in Dooley’s office. Jemma saw everything like it was made of glass, like it was happening in slow motion in front of her. Bullets were pouring through the shattered windows and none of the SSR agents had the weaponry to return fire properly, but a few of them had been hit while trying. Thompson was clutching his leg, blood spewing from between his fingers. Blood. He was bleeding, profusely and she - she was a combat doctor. She had seen men with their limbs blown off, men burned and blinded and eviscerated. Why wasn’t she moving? 

“Simmons!” Coulson’s face was very close to her face and she didn’t remember when he’d gotten there. 

“We have to get out of here, get to the lower levels. If Hydra swarms the base they’ll kill everyone. Your research, we have to get it,” He said. Every one of his words was intelligible, clearly spoken, but none of them made sense. Her research - her anti-radiation medication to protect Fitz and the others, it was in testing - was all downstairs. It was impossible to get to. And Thompson was bleeding. She tried to look for him. Coulson gripped her face in one hand and forced her to meet his eyes. 

“Jemma snap out of it! You need to snap out of it!” 

“Sir, move, I’ll get her!” She knew that voice, but it couldn’t be - he should be just as blue as Fitz - Trip’s head hove into view and he wasn’t blue at all. His eyes were normal, and somewhere in her brain a spark lit. How had that happened? The nitramene bombs deployed at the bottom of the tower should have wrecked him just as quickly as Fitz. Trip’s head replaced Coulson’s and Jemma wondered where the rest of their bodies were. Why were they just heads? 

“Name and rank, soldier!” Trip barked. 

She couldn’t help it. “Doctor Jemma Simmons, 23rd Ambulance, 1st British Army,” she said. 

“There are wounded, doctor. Do your damn job!” Jemma stared at him wide-eyed but she could no more disobey than she could cut off her own arm. She gripped her gun properly and waited for a lull in the fire, then scrambled for where Thompson was pressed against the wall. Dimly she heard Coulson ask Trip what the hell he’d done, and Trip’s grim answer of “Shell-shock. She’s a soldier, sir.” 

Jemma busied herself with Thompson, who was clutching his leg to try to slow the blood. She quickly undid his tie and pulled it off his neck, then wrapped it around his leg just above the wound. 

“I’m going to torque this tight,” she told him, looking around for something to use as a lever arm. He had a pencil in his shirt pocket so she took that too. “It’s going to hurt, and then it’ll go numb.” He just nodded at her. She wound the tie tight and tucked the pencil beneath it at right angles, then started twisting. She twisted until Thompson swore softly and then twisted it further, until she was sure the blood flow had been cut off. 

“Trip! Trip, get him out of here!” Jemma bellowed. Trip hollered his acknowledgement and Jemma looked around for more wounded. There were a couple people dead, she could see that, but other than that everyone seemed alright. From the way the shots were timed to suppress their movement and ability to return fire, she suspected the shooters were simply trying to keep them where they were. Coulson was right, they were probably trying to get into the base from below. Peggy, Coulson, Trip, and May were working on evacuating the other agents, laying down cover fire while the agents made a break for the hallway. Jemma reached up and twitched the heavy green curtains over the window, and then Trip and Thompson staggered towards the hall. The curtain wasn’t much for cover, she knew, but it was enough to confuse the shooter and at least not give them a clear line of sight. She let out a sigh of relief when the two men were safely down the hallway. 

“Simmons, your turn!” Coulson ordered. “There’s nothing left for you to do here!” He himself had hold of Fitz’s legs and was dragging him bodily out of the bullpen. Jemma ran in a low crouch to them and took one of Fitz’s legs from Coulson to help drag him. May and Peggy Carter kept up their cover fire until everyone was out of the bullpen, then they too retreated. Like Jemma had suspected, as soon as they were out of the main hall the sniper fire stopped. 

“We’ve got to move,” Coulson said, “before they get in the base.” 

“Sir, the tech labs won’t be ready to evacuate,” Jemma said, “and if Hydra get the anti-radiation medication I’m developing they might be able to stabilize their serum.” She didn’t need to add that that would lead to them creating an army of super soldiers. Everyone was aware of the stakes. She glanced at Trip, who was waiting for them at the top of the stairs. 

“I assume you took the anti-rad?” She asked. He nodded somewhat guiltily. It hadn’t been ready for testing, and it very well could have killed him. 

“Henry?” She asked. 

“Downstairs. He’s helping the lab techs.” 

“Agent Simmons we aren’t going to let Hydra get into the base,” Coulson said calmly. Jemma’s eyes went wide. 

“You want to fight them off?” She whispered. Trip and Coulson picked Fitz up by the arms and started half-hauling half-dragging him down the stairs. 

“We have to. There’s too much for them to gain. Howard Stark’s inventions, for one.” The inventions had been recovered and stored in the SSR labs. There were several very destructive ones that Hydra could use to very bad ends if they got their hands on them. Jemma reached the door to the lab level before they did and pushed it open. The men hauled Fitz into her lab and dumped him unceremoniously onto their table, while Jemma went to her workbench and started throwing her things into a box. Peggy and May arrived a moment later, looking out of breath. 

“Carter, what the hell happened?” Coulson asked.

“Domino effect,” Carter said, her lips pursed and her fists clenched around her gun. “Roxxon Corporation, the company Howard was trying to aquire, was a front for Hydra. He had no idea,” she said, forestalling their protests. “but they built the nitramene bombs and paid Spider’s men to break into Howard’s vault. Hydra want his weapons, and now that we have them -” 

“They’ll go to great lengths to take them from us,” Coulson finished. Jemma could see his mind working. 

“Do they have anything else? Nitramene bombs, what else?” He asked. 

“Nothing, I don’t think. Just that,” Peggy said. 

Jemma tucked the last of her research notes into the box and then moved over to Fitz’s bench. He was working on a dispersal method for her anti-radiation medication, and there was quite a bit of crossover between their work. Theoretically if Hydra had either half they could engineer the other based on the notes. She hunted around for another box and upon finding one full of odds and ends dumped it so she could start throwing FItz’s things into it. 

“What do we do with him?” May asked, pointing her gun at Fitz on the table. Jemma winced. She didn’t like guns coming anywhere near Fitz, thanks very much. 

“He’ll wake up soon, I think,” Jemma said, “but he won’t be himself.” 

“That’s an understatement,” Trip snorted, “can you give him the meds now?” 

Jemma shook her head. “I have no idea what they would do to him once he’s already turned. You took them before the vita rays got to you but him… though I don’t know how long the medication will work, since there’re still vita rays floating around.” 

“Not very long, I don’t think,” Trip said. Jemma frowned at him, looking over him critically. His fists were clenched and he was sweating, but that could be a byproduct of the attack… 

“Well let’s get going then,” Coulson said. He nodded at Trip and the two of them picked Fitz back up. May grabbed one of the boxes off the workbench and Jemma grabbed the other, then the whole lot of them headed for the stairs. Just as they reached them the door banged open and Henry Hawkins stumbled through. He wasn’t blue, Jemma was relieved to note, but he was covered in blood and coughing. 

“Agent Hawkins, are you alright?” Peggy asked. Henry shook his head and fell to his knees. 

“Everyone in the loading bay… they had some sort of grenade, there was smoke, and then… they started attacking each other. They ripped each other apart, all of them. I was far enough away I got out but… They’re all dead.” He coughed and spit blood on the carpet. Jemma dropped her box and went to him, quickly checking his pulse and his pupils. She felt his forehead, he was hot as could be. 

“Your anti-rad, doc, I think it’s gonna wear off soon,” Henry said. Trip had said the same thing a few moments ago, Jemma noted with growing alarm. 

“What was in those smoke grenades, Carter?” Coulson asked. 

Peggy looked at a loss. “I don’t know. But we have to get out of here before they come in. We can go to Howard’s - he has security systems, but -” 

“How do we get out?” May finished her thought. “The front doors are covered by the snipers and the loading bay is full of smoke that makes people rip each other apart. We need another option.” 

“Can we get a hold of Morse? She’s with Mack and Hunter, isn’t she?” Coulson asked. 

Peggy nodded but said, “They’re on their way to Howard’s. No use to us until they get there and call in.” 

“Sir -” Trip started. 

“We have rifles, can we clear the main doors?” Coulson was brainstorming, but Peggy shook her head again. 

“Can’t get a clear position. They could have agents in place in the lobby across the street for all we know, and we’d have to go out the main doors to get a shot at them.” 

“Sir-” 

“Tunnels? This is an old building, are there any other ways in or out?” 

“Sir!” Trip shouted. Jemma glanced up at him. The ends of his fingers were blue. 

“Doctor’s Simmons’ medication is wearing off. I suggest you let us at them,” he said, indicating himself, Henry, and Fitz. “We’re pretty hard to kill.” 

Coulson opened his mouth to protest, as did Jemma and Peggy. Fitz cut all of them off by groaning and stirring in Coulson’s hands. 

“Sir, you need to clear out now. Go to the vault. Grab as many people as you can along the way. We’ll come get you when it’s clear,” Trip said. His voice descended into a growl as he spoke and by the end he was nearly unintelligible. Henry growled back at him and Jemma stood up and backed away. Henry’s blonde hair was nearly all black and what she could see of his skin was decidedly blue. He stood up, his face a mask of rage. Fitz’s eyes rolled open, solid black. 

“Go!” Trip roared. Jemma scrambled to pick up her box of things, grabbed May by the arm, and ran for the stairs. Peggy and Coulson followed right behind them. They clattered down the three levels to the vault level, and Jemma’s heart pounded in her throat. She could hear the howls of the three creatures above them, and she was sure any second they would burst into the stairwell and come after them. 

“The vault!” Coulson was shouting, herding frightened agents towards the steel door at the end of the hall. “Go!” It was only once they were all safely inside and the doors closed that Jemma breathed out. But it didn’t last long. Somewhere above her Fitz was on the rampage, against who knew how many Hydra agents armed with who knows what. 

“Come back to me,” she whispered.


	26. The Vault and Bloodshed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 5 more chapters to go! They are just about written, with the exception of a couple tricky spots. If all goes well, the last of this story should be posted within the next 2 weeks!

_If it was a dream, it was a nice once. It played out exactly as her memory of the moment had. “They’re here,” Bobbi said, her grin wider than Jemma had seen it before, “and they’re a pair of characters.”_

_Excitement and anticipation bubbled up in Jemma’s stomach, and her eyes shot immediately to Fitz. He looked nervous, but excited. He stood up and wiped his palms on his slacks. He glanced at Jemma and she nodded at him, willing him to go. She and Bobbi followed him out._

_“You did not tell me they were that good-looking,” Bobbi hissed. “You need to introduce me.”_

_Jemma chuckled. “To which one?”_

_Bobbi giggled but didn’t answer, as they were entering the loading bay. They nearly ran into Fitz’s back. He had stopped just into the loading bay, and all conversation in the bay had ceased. Jemma’s hand fluttered up to cover her mouth. Trip and Henry were already there, speaking to Trip’s two old comrades. They looked so different, but so the same as she remembered… she could only imagine how Fitz must feel._

_Mack was standing, tall as ever, but he cradled his prosthetic hand in his right hand like he wanted to hide it. Hunter was leaning against the van they must have arrived in, but he had a cane by his side and when they saw Fitz he had to pick it up to take a few steps towards him._

_“Bloody hell mate I know you’ve always been skinny, but this is a bit much innit?” Hunter said. “Oi Doc you ain’t feedin’ him?” He grinned at Jemma._

_“That one. I want you to introduce me to that one,” Bobbi whispered. Hunter’s words broke Fitz’s stupor though and Fitz strode across the loading bay. He and Hunter clapped each other on the back, and then Mack stepped in._

_“Come here, you,” Hunter said while Mack and Fitz embraced. Jemma grinned and let Hunter embrace her._

_“And who’s your foxy friend?” He asked, winking at Bobbi._

_“Hunter! You’ve been here for two minutes!” Jemma exclaimed, laughingly pretending to be scandalized._

_“Well when you meet someone as beautiful - and obviously dangerous - as this, you gotta move fast,” Hunter said lasciviously. Bobbi laughed, and that in and of itself pushed Hunter up in Jemma’s esteem. It was difficult to make Bobbi laugh, and this man had done it as if it were second nature._

_“Agent Bobbi Morse,” she said, offering him a hand. He shook it with a grin, though he had to move his cane into his other hand to do it._

_“Lieutenant - sorry, Agent, now innit? - Agent Lance Hunter. How’d you do?” Hunter asked. By this point Mack and Fitz had finished their conversation and rejoined the others._

_“Hunter putting the moves on you already, Agent?” Mack asked Bobbi. He leaned around Bobbi and hugged Jemma with a soft hello. Trip just looked on, grinning like a lunatic._

_Bobbi smiled at Mack’s question. “Maybe. We’ll see.”_

_“How about we see over dinner? The lot of us, I mean,” Hunter offered, “and you can fill us in on the whole secret agent business, yeah?” Bobbi regarded him for a long minute but she eventually nodded. The group of them - Trip, Hunter, Bobbi, Fitz, Henry and Mack went for the van. A few steps away Bobbi turned to look at Jemma._

_“Jemma, you coming?”_

“Jemma?” Jemma woke up with a gasp. Someone was saying her name, but it wasn't Bobbi. She looked around. Most of the agents in the vault were tech staff and most of them were asleep. Of her friends most were sleeping as well, with the exception of Melinda May, who Jemma suspected ran on sheer willpower. The others were strewn across the tight space of the vault, curled up in various uncomfortable positions. May was watching her, but May hadn't said her name. 

“Jemma are you in there?” 

It was coming from outside the vault. Jemma pointed wordlessly at the door. May nodded and stood up, gun in hand. She raised it at the door. Jemma spun the lock on the vault and May shifted so she could align her gun with the small crack of space Jemma opened. Jemma glanced back at May and waited for the agent’s nod before she peered out. Two dark figures slumped in the hall outside, but it was too dim for her to be sure. They both twitched when the door opened. 

“Jemma?” It was his voice, that she knew. That wasn't her concern though. She couldn't tell if he was still consumed by the monstrous rage she had seen on him earlier. That he was talking was a good sign. 

“Fitz? Is that you?” She called. 

“Yeah. We're alright now. It's over,” he said. May nodded at Jemma again and she pulled the vault door open wider. May kept her gun trained on Fitz, who took a tremulous step forward until she could see him clearly. Jemma gasped and her body erupted into tremors. 

Fitz was covered in blood. There was no patch if his skin that she could see that wasn't streaked with red. His hair was crusted in it and it dropped off the ends of his claws. The shadowy figure behind him approached just as cautiously, revealing himself to be a just as bloody Trip. A chunk of something slid off Trip’s cheek and plopped loudly to the ground in the silence. Jemma's eyes were as wide and round as saucers. She couldn't process what she was seeing. 

“Where's Hawkins?” May asked from behind her. Jemma managed a glance at the other agent. Except a slight widening of her eyes and her barely slack jaw, May looked just as calm as usual. 

“He… He died,” Fitz said. He didn't elaborate. No one asked him to. 

“We need to go though. We've slowed them down but they're regrouping. Bobbi, Hunter and Mack are in the loading bay waiting for us,” Trip urged. 

By this point most of the agents in the vault were waking up and the ones who could see Fitz looked thoroughly horrified. He saw their expressions and shrank back out of the light. Jemma reached for him, tears that she hadn't realized were falling streaking down her face, but he didn’t respond. Peggy Carter’s head appearing beside Jemma’s in the doorway was the excuse she needed to suck back inside and let Peggy assess the situation while Jemma gathered up her boxes. She assumed they'd be on the move shortly. 

“Is the loading bay secure?” She asked the men, refusing to be disturbed by their appearances. It was Trip who answered her. 

“Yes ma'am,” he said, “Morse and some of the survivors have it on lockdown until we get there.” 

“Good. You two should go ahead, we'll follow.” Peggy didn't need to say that they were terrifying the techs and analysts crowded into the vault, but they got the message. Fitz hoisted Trip’s arm over his shoulders - some of that blood must be theirs Jemma realized - and they staggered down the hall. 

“Go with them,” Peggy urged her. Jemma gulped but nodded. She picked up one of her boxes, ensured the other was grabbed by one of her techs, and then set off after Fitz and Trip. She followed them at a distance up the stairs to the bay. If they noticed her following they didn’t respond at all. 

The stairwell they descended through was relatively clean, though there were a few streaks of blood at hand height that Jemma thought might have come from either Trip or Fitz as they made their way to the vault. When they reached the heavy blast doors that separated the parkade from the stairwell though, it was a whole different story. Blood had puddled under the door, spreading thick and black across the floor. Fitz and Trip staggered through it seemingly without noticing their feet kicking little sprays of blood onto the wall. Trip hauled the door open and they disappeared out into the loading bay. Jemma hesitated at the bottom of the stairs but followed them out, trying not to think of what she was stepping in. 

She stopped when she saw the loading bay. 

It was one of those scenes that the mind didn’t want to take in. Jemma knew the psychology of shellshock, knew how there were some things that one saw that made so little sense that it just looked like a mass of colors and shapes, not real things. Eventually though, it would sink in, so Jemma waited. It started to make sense when she saw what was undeniably a hand on the ground, looking like it was reaching for the stairwell blast door. Then the rest came crashing into focus and Jemma sank against the doorframe, clutching her box of research in her hands. 

“Oh my god,” she whispered. When Henry had said ripped apart, she hadn’t thought… There were pieces of people everywhere. They were splattered over the vans, sitting empty with their side doors open as if waiting for people to climb into them. There were piles of bodies heaped where they had fallen, their faces wide-eyed and angry. Jemma sobbed, her eyes fixed on the eyes of Agent Sitwell, their research and development department head. He was staring right at her. When warm hands touched her shoulders Jemma jumped and let out a little shriek. Her eyes lit on Bobbi’s sad, but alive, face, and she sobbed again. Bobbi tucked Jemma into her shoulder and let her cry, all the while leading her across the parkade. Jemma didn’t look up until Bobbi urged her to sit down and she realized that she was climbing into a waiting vehicle. She twisted her body around so she could see the back of the car. Trip and Fitz were sitting on the back bench seat. Fitz wouldn’t look at her, but Trip would. 

Trip saw her horror and levered himself off his seat so he could get closer to her. He squared his face with hers. He was still blue, a darker shade of blue than Fitz that was tinged almost purple with the addition of the red blood. His eyes were solid black and his voice was rumbly when he spoke to her, but the angles of his face and the tone of his voice was still the same Trip she knew. 

“Doc, we didn’t do this,” he said, pointing out at the loading bay. “This wasn’t us.” Her eyes skittered over his face. 

“But you did something,” she whispered, “What did you do?” 

“We eliminated Hydra, just like they asked us to. But we didn’t do this.” His face was imploring but Jemma couldn’t concentrate past the blood all over it. She took off the little scarf she was wearing - it was so pretty, too, pastel pink with little white flowers on it - and tentatively reached for his face. Trip froze like a deer in the headlights. Jemma wiped the blood off his forehead, working her way down to clean off his eyelids and his nose. She kept going until she reached his chin and his face was relatively clean, then she climbed over the front bench seat so she could get to Fitz. He flinched when she stroked the clean end of the scarf over his forehead but he let her touch him. When his face was clean too she stopped and smiled a very faint smile. 

“There. Now you look like my boys,” she whispered. Fitz snorted. He still wouldn’t look at her. 

“We’re monsters,” he said, his grief evident in his voice. Jemma had a thought. She scrambled for the front seat and her box of research, grabbing for her vials of anti-radiation medication. It hadn’t been tested yet when one of the men was in the middle of a serum-induced transformation, but she knew if she had to wait two weeks for Fitz to come back to normal she would lose him. He would spend the entire time convincing himself that he was a horrible person and she might not be able to convince him otherwise. She came back with a syringe and a vial. She took Fitz’s arm and began cleaning a patch of skin at his elbow. 

“What’re you doing?” He asked. He finally met her eyes though. 

“I’m helping you,” she said. “Trust me.” She waited until he nodded slightly and then injected him with the anti-rad. Within minutes Fitz’s skin color began to change. Jemma went back over the seat, wrapped her used syringe in it’s casing, and grabbed a fresh one from the box. She repeated the process with Trip. By the time Hunter loaded into the car with them and started the engine the men were almost back to normal, except for the eyes. It never even occurred to Jemma that she should be taking notes. 

Jemma found herself sandwiched between Fitz and Trip as more people piled into the front seat, but eventually all the remaining SSR agents were in vehicles and their convoy set out. As they pulled out of the carpark the cars split up, heading in different directions. It was a standard SSR scatter protocol. They would split up, go to ground, and meet back up when the situation had settled down. Their cars slipped out through gaps in the police lines, and then they were off into the New York skyscape. Jemma took Fitz’s hand as they drove and turned it over. She twined her fingers through his and when he glanced at her she smiled gently. He lifted their joined hands and kissed her fingers.


	27. SSR at the Stark Mansion, November

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one is late, I am really struggling with getting the end of this written. I'm not sure why, as I have it all plotted out, but I guess that's sort of how the muse works. Anyways, as usual let me know what you think! 
> 
> Also, RATINGS HIKE in this one. Part of this chapter is E!

Fitz wasn’t sure when on their drive Jemma fell asleep, but he was relieved when she did. She had barely been sleeping, as busy as she was taking care of him and worrying about everything under the sun, and she deserved some rest. She was curled up against his shoulder, her head leaned against him and her hands wrapped around his arm. She was clutching him like she never wanted to let go, and he was okay with that. As he stared down at her peacefully sleeping face, he couldn’t help but think of what he and Trip had done back at the Bell building that housed the SSR, and how he just didn’t deserve her. He looked over at his friend and caught his eye. 

There must have been a question on his face, because Trip frowned and shook his head slowly. The implication was clear. They did not need to tell anyone what happened. Fitz disagreed, but given that there were three SSR agents in the front seat and one sitting between them, he didn’t think this was the right time to talk about it. Besides, the car was slowing down and they were pulling into a long, ornate driveway lined with hedges and flowerbeds. 

The house they pulled up to was nothing short of palatial, but Fitz wasn’t exactly surprised that Howard Stark lived in such a place. He knew of Stark, of course, anyone in the technology and engineering industry did, but he had never met the man. Jemma had worked with him, a fact that Fitz held a fair bit of jealousy for. Speaking of, as the car pulled to a stop in the looping driveway Fitz shook Jemma awake. She was bleary and exhausted, but when he climbed out of the car she moved under her own power. They were the second group to arrive, and they were greeted at the wide French doors by Peggy Carter and a tall, worried looking man Fitz hadn't seen before. 

Fitz kept his arm around Jemma as the tall man ushered them inside, explaining that he was very sorry but Mister Stark wasn't here, but he was Edwin Jarvis and he would be happy to help. On the way they passed a sitting room where a few agents, including the wounded Agent Thompson, Agent Coulson, and Agent May were sitting with their heads together in deep discussion. Jarvis led them onward though, so Fitz sent a little nod at Coulson as they went by. 

Jarvis led them to a richly appointed bedroom with dark wall panels and brocade curtains. There was an en suite bathroom that Fitz couldn't help but eye up, though he tried to listen politely to Jarvis. 

“There are robes and towels for you, and Mrs. Jarvis is out securing extra clothes as well. I'm sorry, we just weren't expecting- but anyways, please let me know if there's anything you need.” Jarvis looked between Fitz all covered in blood and the yawning Jemma, waiting momentarily for them to ask him for something. When they didn't he nodded succinctly and left, closing the door behind him. Fitz sighed. He was aching to lay down; his entire body throbbed with the ache of the day’s exertions, but he was far too messy to think of wrecking Howard Stark’s guest bedroom. He had no idea what to say to Jemma after the day he'd had - between all the things he'd done to the way she'd cleaned his face in the car and held onto him for dear life he was a bit… Lost. 

As usual, he couldn't hide that confusion from Jemma Simmons. 

“What happened at the SSR, Fitz?” She asked softly. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, watching him. 

Fitz shook his head. “I don't want to talk about it,” he said. She didn't need to be burdened with the knowledge of the things he'd done. If he were being honest, he also didn't want her to know in case it would change her opinion of him. He couldn't stand to lose her, and if she knew… 

“Fitz.” Her tone was sharp and he couldn't help but look at her. Even so tired she was the most beautiful person he'd ever seen. Her face was pinched and pale though, she desperately needed sleep, but she had that determined look in her eyes. 

“Ask me what I wouldn't do to protect you,” she said. He looked confused so she repeated herself. When he didn't ask, she stood up and walked right into his personal space, put her hands on his face, and stared him in the eyes. 

“Nothing. There's nothing I wouldn't do if by doing it I could protect you. I've been in France, I know what I'm saying. The answer is still nothing. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but what would you do to protect me?” 

He gulped. Her brilliant hazel eyes were perfectly clear, no hint of a lie to them. He swallowed again, his mouthing to form the words. “Anything. I'd do anything.” 

She patted his cheek. “And so you have. And saved a lot of good people in the process, too. Now come on, enough worrying about whether or not you're a monster. If you were, I wouldn't love you so much.” She sauntered past him to the bathroom, ignoring the silly grin he couldn't quite keep off his face. A moment later he heard the water running and she stuck her head out the door. 

“You coming?” There was no way he could refuse that. 

Jemma already had her clothes off and piled neatly in a corner by the time he got there, and Fitz swept an appreciative glance over her lithe form. She stepped into the steaming shower spray and let out a heavy sigh. Fitz quickly divested himself of what was left of his clothes, though he piled his straight into the garbage can beside the toilet. They were not salvageable, to say the least. He followed Jemma into the water, which was a shower head over a big porcelain clawfoot tub. She immediately moved over so he could get under the spray and he was mortified to see the water run red off his skin a moment later. His eyes flicked to Jemma’s, expecting her to be mortified and maybe even shrink away from him. Instead she reached past him, picked up a washcloth, and went to work. 

Fitz, more than a little stupefied by her actions, let her scrub the blood off his chest and arms, then let her turn him around with a gentle touch and rinse his back off. He turned his head so he could watch her intent expression as she found each drop of blood and cleaned it, and he knew when she was done by the relief that washed over her face. She dropped a little kiss on his shoulder and said, “There.” Something low in Fitz’s chest snapped and he turned slowly, picking Jemma’s wrists up as he went. He drew her towards him, watching her closely as he did. Part of him was still expecting her to realize who she was with and run away. When she didn't, he kissed her, skimming his hands down her back and over her rippling burns. 

Jemma sighed into his mouth, igniting that spark in his stomach that was always waiting for her. He tilted his head and deepened the kiss, groaning as her tongue danced over his. She was clinging tight to his shoulders, and his hands on her waist were not exactly gentle. There was an air of desperation in the way they touched, born of fear and relief and need. Jemma reached between them and palmed Fitz’s wet length, and between that and the way she groaned his name it was no wonder he had to drop his head to her shoulder. He shuddered under her touch for a moment before he regained his sense of purpose and shifted his lips onto her pulse point, sucking gently on her skin. Her hands faltered in their stroking. Fitz took the opportunity to scoop his hands under her round bottom and hoist her up, grinning at her squeak of surprise. Whatever else could be said for the German serum, it had made Fitz significantly stronger and at this particular moment he was grateful for that. 

Jemma grabbed onto the curtain rod that encircled the tub and moaned in affirmation as Fitz lined himself up with her slick opening. Fitz pressed her up against the wall and lowed her onto him, his cock slipping easily into her. With her pinned against the wall and his arms supporting most of her weight he could get the leverage to pound into her, and she helped by locking her ankles behind his back. Fitz peppered her neck and shoulders with hot open-mouthed kisses, his palm pressing at the small of her back as if he could somehow get her closer to him. With his other hand he reached for Jemma's free one, prying her fingers off his shoulder so he could twine their digits together. At that she let out a little whimper and tilted her head to the side so she could kiss him. 

“I love you,” she whispered, nipping his lips with short kisses between gasps. He could feel her walls clenching down on him and he leaned into her shoulder, biting gently on her pulse point and sucking. Jemma came with a shudder under him and her rhythmic undulations pushed Fitz over the edge right after her. He pressed his forehead into the corner of her neck and shoulder as he rode out the waves of pleasure and once they came down he lifted his head to look in her beautiful eyes. 

“I love you,” he said. Jemma smiled at him. She looked like she was about to reply when a ferocious yawn hit her mid breath. Fitz chuckled. 

“I think you need a nap,” he teased, setting her back on her feet. Jemma narrowed her eyes at him and was definitely about to throw a biting retort his way except another yawn interrupted her plan. She gestured ineffectually through her yawn and when her jaw finally closed she sighed. 

“You may be right. Aren't you tired?” She asked. 

Fitz passed her a towel. “Not particularly. I wonder if your anti-rad had anything to do with that.” 

She nodded thoughtfully. “It’s the major variable.” 

Fitz held one of Howard’s ridiculously soft robes open for her to slip her arms through. He forestalled her obvious desire to work through the problem by leading her to the bed and holding the covers open for her. She climbed in with a grateful smile and Fitz went to close the curtains on the two big picture windows. 

“Are you going to join me?” She asked, her eyelids already drooping. 

“In a little while,” Fitz assured, “I just want to check on Trip and the others.” 

Jemma hummed and murmured something that sounded like an okay, and then she was fast asleep. Fitz returned to the bedside and tucked the blankets up around her chin more securely, marvelling at how sleep could so easily soothe the stress and fear from her face. He leaned down and kissed her forehead. He had never loved anything as much as he loved her, and it was equal parts frightening and exhilarating. 

He stared at her a moment longer, seriously debating just climbing into bed with her anyways, but squared his shoulders and sighed. He had to check on his friends or the worry would eat away at him, and he knew Trip wanted to talk to him. He tucked his robe tighter around himself and headed out into the hall. He paused just outside his door. He didn’t actually know where Trip was. 

Luckily, the cosmos seemed to be going easy on him for the latter half of the day and as he stood lost in the hall Trip came out of a room a few doors down. He was clothed in ill-fitting pants and a loose shirt, clearly someone else’s, and when he saw Fitz he made a beeline for him. 

“Fitz! You okay?” He asked. 

“Yeah, fine. You?” Fitz replied. He didn’t have the energy to go through the many reasons why he wasn’t quite okay at this particular moment. 

“Good. Hey man, we need to get our story straight about Henry. We can’t tell them -” 

“Why not?” Fitz cut him off. “They’re our colleagues, our enemies are their enemies, right?” 

Trip snorted. “Yeah, sure. And I’m sure none of them would be suspicious of us after our good buddy Henry was captured by Hydra either!” 

Fitz sighed. Most of him agreed with Trip, but for the sake of that new life Jemma was constantly trying to build, he played devil’s advocate. “Henry was knocked out and dragged off. Not our fault.” 

“No, it wouldn’t be, but we told them he didn’t make it,” Trip said, “Fitz. Why did we tell them he didn’t make it?” 

Fitz answered slowly, feeling like he was betraying Jemma with every word. “Because he’s our brother, not theirs, and we’ll get him back.” 

“And because we don’t really know any of them, do we?” Trip asked. Fitz stared at his friend. He wished sometimes that he had Trip’s talent for putting on a good front. The man always seemed so calm, so friendly and easygoing that it was easy to forget what he had gone through. He had been a good leader and a damn fine soldier even before Hydra, and after them… well none of them had come out the same, and it was to be expected that the experience had done a number on Trip too. He wasn’t half as friendly as he used to be, and easygoing was no longer part of his nature. Fitz couldn’t help but relate to his newly suspicious nature; after all, they knew how quickly everything could be taken away. 

But Fitz also couldn’t disagree with his suspicions. After all, they didn’t really know the SSR agents downstairs, and they certainly didn’t trust any of them. It was impossible to know how they would react to the news of Henry, and frankly Fitz didn’t want to find out. Henry was their problem, no one else’s. 

“No,” he said. Trip nodded in apparent relief. 

“Okay. So we don’t tell them. Not even Jemma. Not even Mack and Hunter.” That one surprised Fitz a little, but then again, Mack and Hunter hadn’t been in those cages in a Hydra basement. They didn’t really know how it was. 

“How are we going to get him back?” Fitz asked, hoping that since Trip was so willing to withhold this information from people who could help them that he might have a plan. “We can’t exactly sneak out. Stark has safeguards on every inch of this place, I’m sure, and I’m not going to leave Jemma here alone.” Nevermind that she was surrounded by fellow agents, in Fitz’s mind if she wasn’t with him she might as well be alone. 

“Don’t worry, I’ve got an idea,” Trip said. His trademark smirk was firmly back in place and he crowded Fitz towards the stairs. “Now come on, let’s get down there. I’m sure they’ll want us to get right back into it.” 

Downstairs, they found that the group in the sitting room had grown quite a bit. Most of the agents who had fled the Bell building were there now, perched about the room like so many birds. Mack and Hunter saw them come in and came over to them. Watching them make their way through the crowd, Fitz couldn't help but feel a bit guilty for what he'd said upstairs about not being able to trust them. He supposed Jemma would have some sort of medical reasoning as to why his former comrades in arms didn't rate the same way anymore, but all he knew was there was a big difference versed war and prisoner of war, like a gulf that couldn't be crossed. However, they still rated above everyone else, so Fitz shook Mack’s offered hand and answered Hunter’s worried “You okay?” 

“What's going on?” Trip asked, eyes wary. 

“Meeting. We gotta decide what to do now,” Hunter said. As if she'd heard them Peggy Carter stood up and cleared her throat. She glanced over at Fitz and Trip and raised her eyebrows as if to ask if they were alright. Fitz gave her a slight nod and she continued. 

“Alright. Are we missing anyone?” She asked first. Everyone looked around in a quick headcount. 

“Simmons?” The tall, Amazonian Bobbi Morse asked. Hunter gave a little sigh. He was staring at her, openly and unabashedly. Fitz rolled his eyes, not surprised in the least. 

“She's sleeping. She needs it,” he said to Bobbi. Peggy took over and ran through a list of agents, many of whom Fitz didn't know. He was saddened to learn that one of the lab techs he'd been working with, Tara, hadn't made it. Jemma would be crushed. 

“Okay,” Peggy said, her mouth set in a thin line and her eyebrows raised with sadness, “what tech did we leave behind?” 

As it turned out, not much, but more than they had hoped. Several of Howard’s inventions were still at the building, as well as some SSR projects they didn't want to fall into Hydra hands. Peggy wrote everything down and when the list was finished she paused.

“We have to eliminate them,” she stated. The room erupted into chaos. Agents shouted at each other and at her, decrying that idea or supporting it. Fitz and the others were quiet in their corner. Fitz had to wonder if they looked as out of place as they felt. Peggy gave them room to be angry for about a minute, and then she put her fingers to her lips and blew a shrill whistle. The room quieted. Peggy cleared her throat again and this time was interrupted by Agent Thompson, who was sitting on a couch with his leg elevated. 

“You ain't in charge, Agent Carter,” he said. If looks could kill, he'd have keeled over. Peggy’s eyes narrowed and she strode over to Thompson’s couch so she could tower over him. 

“Who is?” She asked, her voice completely made of ice. Thompson blanched but bristled, like he was taken aback but didn't want to show it. 

“Technically-” 

Peggy cut him off. “Technically? Technically Chief Dooley is dead, you're injured, and no one else knows Hyrda like I do. If you think you can sort this mess out you're welcome to it, but I would be willing to bet you can't even stand up.” She waited for him to protest and snorted when he didn't. 

“Exactly. Now, do you have any further comments or may I get back to business?” She didn't bother waiting for him to reply, just turned around and forged ahead like she'd never been interrupted. 

“We must eliminate Hydra,” she stated again, “because if we don't they will follow us wherever we go. The SSR was created to gather scientific intelligence during the war and our mission since has been the same. Hydra was made to develop dangerous technology bent on world destruction. It is our job to stop them, and if we don't they will destroy us along with however many thousands are in their way. Now, our base has been compromised and the SSR as we know it is gone, but we swore an oath when we signed up, and I for one will not stand by while Hydra wreaks havoc on Manhattan. If you'd like to help me stop them, I would appreciate it, but if you must leave I will understand. Decide quickly though, we have no time to waste.” She was on a mission now, and Fitz got the feeling that nothing short of an act of God would stop Agent Carter on a mission. 

As Carter spoke the other agents in the room were slowly responding, straightening up and collecting themselves like they were taking strength from her words. Fitz had seen the reaction before - it was that of soldiers to a good commander. A good leader could motivate their troops with just words, as Peggy Carter was doing, and a great commander could convince their people to follow them anywhere. He wasn’t sure yet if Carter had that in her, but he wouldn’t put it past her. She looked around, her face growing more resolved as she saw that no one had left. 

“Good. Alright people we need a plan. Our objective is to reclaim the Bell building before Hydra can move our technology out of the area, and then eliminate the Hydra threat. I am open to suggestions,” she said. 

Thus began the single most intensive session of strategic planning Fitz had ever sat through, and he had seen action in three countries during the war. All of that was nothing compared to the vicious organization of the SSR in full gear, and Fitz finally got to see what they might have been like during the war when they were a strategic mobile unit. It was something to behold. He wasn’t sure when it had happened, but at some point Carter had located a notebook and sat down at the little coffee table in the middle of the sitting room, and she had started writing down the various suggestions being thrown at her. The agents attacked the problem like a step-by-step maths set: one variable at a time. They would hash out singular details until Carter wrote down a note in her book, at which point the detail was considered dealt with and the group would move on. They bickered and ruthlessly debated over minutiae that Fitz wouldn’t have even considered, but the second they moved on to the next task the squabbling over the last point ceased. It was expertly executed and methodically laid out until within about an hour they had a plan drawn up step-by-step in Peggy’s notebook. At the end, Peggy read through her list one last time, then read it aloud. When it was not met by further criticism, she called it done and closed the book. 

“Good. Now, one final question,” she said, looking far more fatigued than Fitz had ever seen her before. It was a bit unnerving to see the usually unflappable Agent Carter actually look tired. Everyone glanced at her, waiting for her to continue. 

“Where the hell is Howard Stark?” She asked, and it dawned on everyone in the room that they didn’t know.


	28. A Nice Dream, and Chaos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo sorry for the delays in getting this up! I'm not sure why these last few chapters are kicking my ass, but they are! Anyways, we're two chapters away from the end, so as always thank you so much for sticking with me! 
> 
> -AO

_Dinner the night that Mack and Hunter had arrived was the best evening Jemma had had in a very long time, since even before the war if she were being honest with herself. She hadn’t had many friends growing up, and in college she was so driven and so different - a woman in medicine, how scandalous! - that it had been difficult to meet people. But now here she was, sitting around a dinner table with six other people she considered her friends, laughing and holding hands with the man she loved. She was at peace, and it had never occurred to her that it wouldn’t last._

_As they walked the two new agents back to their hotel after dinner - they hadn’t wanted to split up, for some reason - Jemma held hands with Fitz and laughed with Trip, her eyes flicking back and forth from her friend to where Bobbi and Hunter were walking quite close together just ahead of them. Mack and Henry were chatting a few feet behind her, about some sort of new engine they had heard of. Jemma was surprised Fitz wasn’t in there like a dirty shirt. She glanced over at him, catching him staring at her._

_“What?” she asked, suddenly self conscious, “Do I have something on my face?”_

_He smiled softly. “No, course not. Just like to look at you, is all.”_

_Jemma blushed up to the tips of her ears and Trip laughed._

_“You two are so sweet I might get a toothache,” he declared. Jemma swatted him._

_“And what about you, Agent Triplett? Do you have your eye on anyone? My lab technician Tara keeps asking after you,” she said. Trip grinned a bit shyly, and Jemma crowed with delight._

_“Well that’s kind, but I’m sort of… seeing someone. No, don’t get your eyebrows up like that, I ain’t telling you anything. She’s not SSR, if that’s what you’re wondering. She's a reporter, name’s Daisy,” he said. Jemma knew better than to push him for more information, like as not he would just clam up. But she grinned happily at him anyways, pleased._

_“Good!” She said. “I expect to meet her, you know.”_

_“Yes ma,” Trip teased. Jemma huffed at him but didn’t bother arguing. She knew she mommed her friends sometimes, but she just couldn’t help it. She wanted them all to be happy and safe and together, despite knowing full well that that probably wouldn’t happen in their line of work._

_She teased Trip about his new lady friend until they reached Hunter and Mack’s hotel, where they dropped the two men off. If Hunter lingered a moment too long and Bobbi looked back over her shoulder at him a couple times more than was strictly necessary nobody commented on it, and pretty soon they were walking through the New York night again towards their various apartment buildings. They lost Trip and Henry a few blocks later when they turned off to go to their place, and then Bobbi said her goodbyes shortly after. Then it was just Fitz and Jemma, walking arm in arm towards her apartment building. They didn’t say anything, just walked quietly. Jemma was suddenly struck by how beautiful everything was - the night was crystal clear and sharp with the sting of oncoming winter, and past the streetlamps she could just make out some of the stars. Fitz was tucked into a woolen coat beside her and his cheeks were red from the cold, making him look slightly boyish. He was watching her again. Jemma swooped in and kissed him, just a soft chaste press of lips to remind herself again what it felt like to be in love._

_Fitz raised his eyebrows at her but neither of them said anything, so they kept on walking towards their building. Their home. Jemma felt a little thrill whenever she thought of the apartment as theirs, but they both knew he wasn’t looking for his own place anytime soon. They spent the rest of the walk smiling small smiles, arms tucked together, breath puffing chilly clouds in the November evening._

Unfortunately the peace that that memory held for Jemma dissipated quickly upon waking. She woke in a wide, soft bed, tucked under the quilts in bathrobe and nothing else. She rolled over, still foggy with sleep, and then realized that the noises that had woken her up were not subsiding. They were the sounds of people running up and down the hallway, hurried feet slapping along the carpet and voices calling out to one another. Something was going on, and she had no idea what. Adrenaline began to course through her, and she jumped out of bed, tucking the robe tighter around her as she went. She cracked open her door and stuck her head out, immediately barraged by the sight of agents in full go mode. 

“Trip!” she called as he hove into view at the end of the hall. He lengthened his step and reached her door in a moment. 

“What’s going on?” She asked. 

“Howard Stark is in a plane headed to Time’s Square. He’s been brainwashed by Hydra and he’s going to drop a payload of midnight oil in the middle of the city,” Trip said, blunt as could be. Jemma’s hand came up to cover her mouth. 

“That’s not… are you sure?” She asked. 

“Yes. We’re deploying to Times Square and the hangar where Stark’s plane was stored. If Hydra’s still there we’ll catch them on their way,” he said, “so you better get dressed and get going!” He patted her arm and headed away down the hall, obviously on his way somewhere. 

Jemma pulled her head back into her room, more disoriented and off-balance than she had been when she woke up. Howard brainwashed? Midnight oil in Times Square? What the hell was going on? And to top it off she still didn’t have any clothes, so she went back into the bathroom and pulled on her things. They weren’t clean by any stretch of the imagination; the hems of her straight-leg slacks were still soaked in blood and there were specks of red all over her cardigan, but it was better than marching downstairs in her skivvies and a borrowed robe. 

Jemma waded through the crush of people in the hallway and down the stairs, feeling like a fish against the tide. Everyone was shouting and dashing about and if Jemma didn't know better she'd say it was sheer chaos, but she could see the underlying organization. What she couldn't see was Fitz or Peggy or anyone who could give her more explanation. Jemma kept asking people as she went, but no one seemed to know where they were. 

Finally, at the point of complete exasperation, Jemma found Phil Coulson at the mansion’s front doors. 

“Simmons, good you're up,” he said, completely calm. 

“Coulson, what’s going on? Where's Fitz?” 

“He's loading equipment into the cars. We're deploying to Stark’s personal hangar and Times Square to stop Hydra.” He said it almost cheerfully, like this was a normal day’s work for him. Though she didn't have any detail on Coulson and May’s mission over the last few months, she did know the two had been tracking Hydra activities across the globe. Maybe for him this showdown was a long time coming. 

“What do you need me to do?” Jemma asked. She was worried about Fitz and the rest of her friends, of course, but her job came first. 

“You'll deploy with my team to Times Square. Agent Fitz thinks he can set up a containment field so that we can use the nitramene to collect the gas? To be honest I'm not sure, but he says it will. I need you to link up with him and check his reasoning, okay?” Coulson explained. Jemma’s mind raced into overtime but she raised her eyebrows at the senior agent, silently questioning his request. 

“Agent Fitz is new and I have no reference for how he performs under pressure, but I trust you, Simmons. Check his reasoning, please,” Coulson said. She couldn't fault him for that, so she followed his pointing finger and soon enough found Fotz directing the loading of equipment into a couple of the cars they had so recently vacated upon arrival. 

“Jemma,” he squawked when he saw her, “you're up!” 

“Yes, and you should have woken me sooner,” she said waspishly. He colored a bit around the ears but held his ground. 

“You needed to sleep. Anyways did Coulson fill you in?” 

“Yes. Walk me through your plan?” She asked, eyeing the contents of the car they were stood beside with more than a little unease. There were stacks of the blue Hydra pulse rifles in the trunk on top of a mess of wires that looked like they'd been pulled off of every electronic in Howard’s house, as well as tools, a box of the small handheld radios they'd developed together, and yards of coiled rope. 

“Simple. The tesseract crystals that power the rifles are also capable of projecting force fields, for lack of a better term. That's why they fire blue like that, they're firing pure energy. So all we need to do is rig them up so they work like capacitors in series: build up and then release the tesseract energy as a big blue bubble,” he explained. 

“And you're going to do that with some wire and a few crystals?” She asked incredulously. 

“Yes. Trust me?” He asked, looking at her with uncertainty. Jemma sighed. No matter what else, she did trust Fitz.

“I do. Alright, what else do you need?” She asked. He immediately brightened up and set her to work. 

They became a whirlwind of activity and after far too short a time they were loaded into the cars and on their way to Times Square. Coulson was in the front seat of their car with his ever-present companion Agent May. One day, Jemma thought absently, she was going to find out what was between those two. Not today, clearly, but one day she would know. Coulson was peppering Fitz with questions about his plan, and an alarming number of Fitz’s answers were “I don't know.” Coulson kept glancing at Jemma in the rear view mirror and his eyes kept getting wider, as if to ask her why on earth she was supporting this foolish plan. It took about five questions answered with “I don't know” and five significant looks from Coulson for Jemma to snap. 

Fortunately, Agent Melinda May beat her to it. 

“Enough,” she said quietly. Everyone in the car went silent. Coulson raised his eyebrows at his partner, but didn’t push her. 

“We trekked halfway across the world to recruit these two in the middle of the biggest war in human history. Either they can figure this situation out or they can’t, but I’m tired of listening to the many ways in which this might go wrong. Alright?” She asked. Coulson relented, giving her a quick nod and refocusing on the road. Jemma had to hide a smile. Agent May didn’t speak much, preferring to be an ominously quiet presence wherever she went, but when she did speak people listened. 

May turned slightly in her seat and addressed Jemma and Fitz directly, apparently ready to take over where Coulson left off. 

“Alright. FitzSimmons, what do we need to get to make this work?” 

Fitz and Jemma looked at each other at the same time, and it was as if Jemma could read his mind. She had never heard anyone put their names together like that, and truth be told, she didn’t mind it one bit. A small smile played over the corners of Fitz’s mouth, and he reached over the seat to twine his fingers with hers. She took that to mean he didn’t mind either. Then he took a breath and launched into an explanation of the forcefield he was hoping to generate, and the components they would need to make it work. May listened intently, but Jemma knew she was letting most of the science stuff just pass her by. May was inordinately good at picking out the pieces of information she needed, and she was probably compiling a list of components in her head right now. 

As she had thought, when Fitz’s explanation wound down May paused and then nodded. 

“Okay. You need any transformers, wires, film capacitors, insulation, glue, resistors, and sheet metal plating we can find?” 

Fitz ummed and ran through the list. “Yeah,” he said, “and sandbags. To hold the whole thing down.” 

“Got it,” May said. She turned back around and got on the handheld radio that Fitz had insisted each car carry before they left, then relayed the information out to the teams. 

In the back seat, Fitz lifted his and Jemma’s linked hands up and kissed her fingers, as was becoming a hallmark for him. She sent him a little smile. 

“It’ll be okay,” she whispered, and he nodded. His face was set with more determination than she had ever seen on it, as if this was his opportunity to be more than a soldier with an alien serum in his blood. He almost looked like the man she had met in Cannes again, the Sapper who shuffled his feet around her and offered to help her with her refrigerator. She hadn’t realized that she’d missed that man, and it made a small piece of her heart feel like he was going to be okay in the end. 

Then their radio crackled and Peggy Carter’s voice came through. “Team A, team A, all units redirect to Roosevelt Island, I repeat, redirect to East Loop Road, Roosevelt Island.” 

May and Coulson exchanged glances and she picked the radio back up. There was chatter as everyone tried to get more information from Peggy at once, but May held down her radio transponder until there was a gap. 

“Carter, May. Explain? There’s nothing on Roosevelt Island.” Nothing important, anyways. What little Jemma knew of the city’s geography was limited to Manhattan, but she did know that the skinny little island that ran alongside Manhattan Island was home to nothing but a few buildings and a nice park. 

“Hydra have a facility there. They’ve been waiting to strike right under our noses. Howard is diverting. He’s going to drop the Midnight Oil on the Hydra location. You need to be there to contain it.” 

For once Agent May looked like she had more questions than her usual taciturn nature would allow. “Carter-” 

Peggy didn’t bother. “Team A, redirect to Roosevelt Island immediately. Do you understand?” She asked, and there was no doubt from her tone, even over the radio, that she would answer no more questions. 

“Understood,” May said, and Peggy signed off. May stared at her radio as if she were wishing it would come to life and explain any of this situation to her, but when it didn’t she snapped right back into work mode. The only thing her radio was alive with at the moment were other agents asking questions in rapid-fire succession, but even May didn’t have any answers. Eventually she had to just put the radio down. 

“Take this exit,” she said to Coulson, who obeyed without question. 

“Well, I guess we’re going to go bomb an island,” Fitz muttered, “Great.”


End file.
